Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is best described as consistent without being predictable. The Republican ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, set to become its chair in January, was a thorn in George W. Bush’s side on Iran (she is more of a hardliner on the issue than any president has been) but recently indicated she’d be happy to team up with President Obama–with Ros-Lehtinen playing the “bad cop” in the classic routine.
“I think that the majority of our committee, that has yet to be named … will be able to help the president be tougher with countries,” Ros-Lehtinen told Reuters. “I think it strengthens the president’s hand.”
It’s not just Iran, of course, but North Korea, China, and anyone else Ros-Lehtinen believes have been pushing the U.S. and our allies around in the first half of Obama’s first term. She takes a tough line on Cuba as well–she was born in Havana, and her district (Florida’s 18th) includes Little Havana.
Ros-Lehtinen has led the House charge on Iran since the issue of the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons became a regular topic of public conversation during the Bush administration. In January 2006, the New York Sun reported that as Bush prepared to deliver his State of the Union address–which would mention the Iranian threat–“he will face some skepticism” by those who didn’t think the president had been doing enough to ramp up sanctions on Iran and to support opposition pro-democracy groups in the Islamic Republic. Perhaps the most vocal skeptic that night was Ros-Lehtinen, who had three weeks earlier introduced the Iran Freedom Act, which in that time had gathered 332 more congressional cosponsors.
The following year, Ros-Lehtinen introduced mandatory Iran divestment. In 2008, Ros-Lehtinen pushed the administration to investigate an oil deal between Iran and Venezuela. And in 2009, she criticized a nuclear deal between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates, calling for greater oversight and warning of the UAE’s cooperation with Iran.
Two weeks ago, with the release of a report accusing North Korea of passing nuclear technology to Syria, Iran, and Burma, Ros-Lehtinen hit the Obama administration’s policy of “engagement” and offered another preview of what to expect from her committee come January:
Instead of continuing its failed strategy of seeking to engage the regime in endless negotiation, the administration must ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang. At the upcoming G-20 summit in Seoul, President Obama must persuade the heads of state to call for the imposition of new and effective U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea. In addition, the U.S. and other responsible nations must use every means at their disposal to apply pressure on Pyongyang, the first step being to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Her advice obviously wasn’t heeded at the G-20, and two weeks later North Korea launched what the U.K. Telegraph called “the most serious act of aggression against civilians from Pyongyang since the bombing of Korean Air flight 858 in 1987. It was the first artillery strike on South Korean soil since 1953.”
As with Iran, Ros-Lehtinen has been all over every angle of the North Korea issue. In 2007, she called on the United Nations to cease all project funding in North Korea after it became clear the regime was subverting some U.N. funds while stealing others. When the Bush administration removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, Ros-Lehtinen accused the administration of not taking the threat seriously.
No members of the “Axis of Evil” are spared; when the Obama administration reopened diplomatic relations with Syria, Ros-Lehtinen accused them of “aiding an unrepentant regime” and “sending a signal that the U.S. will make concessions and seek dialogue regardless of what the facts dictate.”
Which brings us to the Middle East, where Ros-Lehtinen pulls no punches. When in June Obama unveiled a $400 million aid plan for the West Bank and Gaza, Ros-Lehtinen called it a “bailout of the Palestinian leadership” that “sends the message that standing in the way of peace and freedom can be quite profitable.” She had a similar reaction last year when Obama pledged to help rebuild Gaza after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead–a response to Hamas rocket attacks.
And when the Christian Science Monitor reported that the midterm elections gave important chairmanships to “several unabashed pro-Israel representatives,” the first name they offered was that of Ros-Lehtinen.
Ros-Lehtinen’s support for Israel and embrace of the embargo of Cuba recently resulted in a somewhat strange episode. In an interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Fidel Castro thought he would see if he still had the ability to play Western media like a fiddle. He did. He said some nice things about Israel, and Goldberg bought it and helpfully transcribed the remarks.
This put the Israeli leadership in tough spot; they could call the comments what they were–a ridiculous attempt to manipulate public opinion by a man who has for decades vigorously supported the enemies of the Jewish people–or they could say something nice in response and try not to look contemptuous. They chose the latter.
Ros-Lehtinen was unimpressed, and let Netanyahu know; Netanyahu conceded the point to Ros-Lehtinen. Thus was squelched what Politico’s Ben Smith called “an unexpected diplomatic opening,” and Goldberg accused Republicans of not being quite as pro-Israel as they claim. But, as Seth Lipsky wrote in the New York Sun, Ros-Lehtinen was right all along:
Israel is a small, beleaguered democracy in need of all the help it can get. The exiled Cubans who have been holding out for democracy on their native island are logical allies. And vice versa. How tragic it would have been were Israel to have made a separate peace with the communist regime, all on the notion that a dictator who has for two generations oppressed his own people and joined in the war against the Jews had suddenly come down with a change of heart.
Ros-Lehtinen’s judgment is sound, her pursuit of American security tenacious. Look for those two qualities to separate the new GOP chairs from their immediate predecessors.