WASHINGTON: Kevin McCarthy, who could soon be second in line to the White House, startled US allies when he warned that his Republican Party would no longer write a “blank check” to Ukraine.
If the Republicans win either chamber of Congress in the November 8 elections, President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team would face a grueling two years, although any sharp shift in US support for Ukraine looks unlikely.
Republican lawmakers have already made clear they would make full use of their congressional oversight role to scrutinize the Biden administration on topics from immigration to last year’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But Ukraine could test the united front among Republicans, just as they start gearing up for 2024 presidential elections.
Donald Trump broke with the US mainstream by voicing admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, with the former US president’s first impeachment triggered by his hold-up of military aid for Ukraine.
Some Trump-inspired Republicans have attacked US assistance to Ukraine, which includes $40 billion approved in May on bipartisan lines and a Biden request for another $11.2 billion.
One of the loudest voices has been far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has accused Biden of sending “hard-earned US tax dollars” to help another country “fight a war they cannot possibly win.”
But Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, has vowed to go beyond Biden and “expedite” weapons including those with a longer range, and Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice president, recently took direct aim at critics of arming Ukraine.
“There can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists for Putin. There is only room in this movement for champions of freedom,” Pence said.
Colin Dueck, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has written on conservatives’ foreign policy, saw the comments by McCarthy, the top House Republican, as an effort to accommodate a minority view on Ukraine.
A new survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found widespread US support for Ukraine, with two-thirds of Republicans agreeing on the need to send weapons.
“There’s this perception that the average kind of heartland Republican is against this and that is not true,” Dueck said.
“I’m not sure it would be safe to predict that a House Republican majority is going to turn against Ukraine,” he said.
For Republicans, “anything that’s perceived by voters as a personal attack on Trump is taken as a kind of third rail, but on policy issues people feel free to disagree.”
Biden’s Democratic Party has seen near unanimity for arming Ukraine but some 30 left-wing members on Monday also urged direct diplomacy with Russia to end the war, including on security arrangements acceptable to both sides.
One international issue where Republicans have fiercely criticized Biden has been his effort to restore the Iran nuclear deal, but prospects were already slim even before major protests broke out in September against the nation’s clerical leaders.
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