FOR THE first time since 1994, the Democrats control both houses of Congress. Expectations run high among members of the new majority as well as their supporters and commentators at home and abroad. Their hopes for fundamental change are fed not only by genuine policy agendas, but also by political rancor and a partisan polarization more pronounced than at the height of the Vietnam War. Yet the role of Congress in foreign policy remains relatively limited, and aspirations for fundamental change greatly exceed what political, institutional and geopolitical realities will allow.

In many quarters a visceral antipathy toward President Bush and Vice President Cheney has prevailed. This finds expression in a certain narrative about foreign policy. Versions of this narrative differ, but they tend to share common elements.

The Cold War and the decade that followed it are depicted as an era when the United States pursued policies of multilateralism, collaboration with allies and respect for international law and institutions. America was widely admired or at least respected abroad until the presidency of George W. Bush. The former Texas governor took office with a swagger, a shoot-from-the-hip mentality and an aggressive unilateralist approach to foreign policy. America discarded its past habits of restraint, commitment to common institutions and deference to international partners' views. The 9/11 attacks gave full rein to these belligerent instincts and provided a pretext for ignoring the United Nations, violating international law and launching an aggressive war in defiance of wise voices calling for restraint.

This narrative implies guidelines for foreign policy, not only in Iraq but more broadly, that emphasize bipartisanship, multilateralism, re-engagement with international institutions and the UN, and aversion to pre-emption, thus regaining the international community's respect.

To be sure, discontent over Iraq had much to do with the Democratic victory in the November 2006 elections. But the above narrative is flawed, and the latitude for Congress to change foreign policy is constrained. It may surprise internationalist and realist critics, but the future demands something like the current administration's strategies.

Myths about Past Policy

HISTORICALLY, THE United States has been far more unilateral and assertive than commonly assumed, as Robert Kagan recently reminded us in reference to the early years of the republic and the 19^th century. Hemispheric neighbors and Europe saw America as aggressive, expansionist and possessed of an unwelcome liberal, commercial and revolutionary ideology.[1]Even post-World War II America wasn't the place for the consistent alliance cooperation some make it out to be. Throughout the Cold War, there were numerous and often acrimonious disputes with allies and adversaries over security, economic, political and even cultural issues. German rearmament, the Suez crisis, the Vietnam War, Middle East policies, the Arab oil embargo following the October 1973 Yom Kippur War and the decision to station intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe in the early 1980s are just a few examples of these quarrels.

Past American policy was by no means consistently multilateral. In 1950 President Truman dispatched American forces to Korea prior to un authorization; in 1962 President Kennedy appeared ready to use force against Soviet missiles in Cuba; four American presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford) sent troops to Indochina; Reagan employed U.S. military power to oust a junta in Grenada and George H. W. Bush overthrew a dictator in Panama. At the end of the Cold War, the elder President Bush pursued German unity over the objections of President Mitterrand of France and Prime Minister Thatcher of Britain. And in another conspicuous case, the Clinton Administration's 1999 attack on Serbia to halt murder and ethnic cleansing, the United States and NATO went ahead without UN Security Council authorization. Russia would have vetoed any resolution authorizing the action.

Nor has American policy been uniformly unilateralist since 9/11. In fact, the United States has continued to play an active role in institutions such as the World Trade Organization, NATO, the IMF, the World Bank and the UN Security Council. It has also pursued multilateral initiatives, including an expanded foreign aid program and an extensive initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Indeed, the complaint about unilateralism is as much about policy as process. If the administration adopted policies its critics liked, they would be less fastidious about multilateral means.

Anti-Americanism has precedents too. While the phenomenon has spread and intensified in recent years, it is worth recalling that it was sometimes widespread and occasionally violent during the Cold War ("Yankee Go Home" as a pervasive leftist slogan in Europe during the early years of the Cold War, riots during Richard Nixon's vice presidential visit to Latin America in the 1950s, massive anti-Vietnam War and anti-Euromissile demonstrations in the late 1960s and early 1980s). One can find its antecedents in the 18^th century, when antipathy was widespread on the royalist and pre-revolutionary right.[2]

Exaggerated Expectations about Congress and Foreign Policy

CONGRESS DOES play a constitutional role in foreign policy, and Democratic control of the House and Senate will affect a number of areas. The most visible of these will likely be the oversight function, which even some Republican legislators concede has been underutilized in recent years. Congress oversees executive agencies to be sure they follow the law and use public monies appropriately. Legislative investigations can be effective tools in discovering and publicizing abuses of the public trust, as well as in holding policymakers to account. The subpoena power can be a formidable weapon in certain circumstances. In addition, the Senate is responsible for "Advice and Consent" on treaties and on appointments to the rank of ambassador. John Bolton's resignation, in the face of opposition to his formal confirmation as UN ambassador, is a case in point.

Congress also wields the power of the purse, and the ultimate sanction in foreign policy is to reduce or cut off funds. During the early Vietnam era, Congress hesitated to exercise this power, but in June 1973 it passed the Case-Church Amendment halting military activity in Indochina-by a veto-proof majority. The following year, after large Democratic gains in the post-Watergate elections, Congress halted all military funding for the South Vietnamese. The two actions helped along South Vietnam's 1975 defeat.

Legislative powers are consequential, but they are not unlimited. Equally important, Democratic majorities are small, and President Bush retains the ability to veto legislation. Because gerrymandering and political polarization have significantly reduced the number of moderates in both parties, there are fewer Republican representatives and senators willing to vote with the Democratic majority. To the contrary there are 44 moderate Democratic "blue dogs" in the House, many from traditionally Republican districts, who would be reluctant to support activist-left initiatives. The Senate balance is even more tenuous, and a defection by Joseph Lieberman would deny the Democrats a working majority.

Another constraint on legislative power in foreign policy has been evident in the tug of war over the War Powers Resolution of 1973, passed over Nixon's veto. The resolution sought to restrain presidential authority to wage war, but Democratic and Republican presidents have resisted it on the grounds it infringes on their constitutional authority. The courts have been reluctant to intervene, and the resolution has had marginal effect.

Congress's structure also limits its ability to shape foreign policy. Committee and subcommittee chairs jealously oppose measures that would reduce their numbers and areas of overlapping authority; the 9/11 Commission complained that "congressional oversight for intelligence-and counter-terrorism-is now dysfunctional." In addition, while Democratic voters and elected officials have been broadly critical of the Bush Administration's conduct in Iraq, lawmakers are by no means united behind an alternative course of action. Furthermore, all but the most vocal anti-war activists have been unwilling to cut off military funding. A majority of Democrats want to see the U.S. troop commitment reduced, but sharp differences exist between the left, the more cautious mainstream and the "blue dogs."

Foreign Policy Beyond Bush

IN INVADING Iraq, President Bush "rolled the iron dice." At the time, the case for military action attracted support from more than 70 percent of the American public and majorities in both houses of Congress. However, the subsequent years of bloody insurgency and sectarian violence leave the outcome uncertain. Whatever the ultimate result there has been much to criticize, especially following the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. Yet the understandable focus on Bush has obscured the deeper international and strategic perils America faces. Whether Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or some as-yet-unheralded candidate takes the next oath of office, he or she will face a foreign policy agenda for which Bush-centric critiques and slogans will be of limited value.

External threats include related but distinct components, the most conspicuous element of which is Islamist terrorism. In the words of the 9/11 Commission, this is not something Americans can "bargain or negotiate" with. For the foreseeable future, America will fight an intransigent ideology wedded to violence and apocalyptic nihilism. Related to this is the problem of nuclear proliferation and the potential use of wmd by states and terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden, whose fatwas and declarations of war against America date back to 1996 and 1998-i.e., pre-Bush and pre-Iraq War-has called it a sacred duty to acquire nuclear weapons and added that Al-Qaeda would be justified in killing four million Americans, half of them children.

A number of authors, including prominent realists, have sought to connect terrorism and the war in Iraq with America's support for Israel-or even to elaborate a kind of neoconservative conspiracy theory where the Bush Administration invades Iraq at the behest of pro-Israel policymakers and lobbyists. But this allegation provides neither an accurate analysis of the decision nor a valid understanding of radical Islam.

While solutions to the Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian problems would be highly desirable in themselves, neither would likely produce a significant respite from Islamist terrorism. It is worthwhile to remember that the 9/11 attacks preceded the Iraq invasion, and that terrorism against American installations in the 1990s coincided with the Arab-Israeli peace process at its most fruitful stage. The initial 1993 attack on the World Trade Center; suicide bombings in Bali, Istanbul, Jakarta, Tunisia, Casablanca and Amman; the brutal murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh; murderous reactions to the Danish cartoon incident; an attempt to blow up the Indian parliament; and the destruction of the Shi‘a Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra along with lethal Sunni-Shi‘a violence in Iraq, are evidence of a much more profound and lasting kind of threat.

In essence, the origins of the Bin Laden and jihadi movements have little to do with the Palestinian problem. Bin Laden's 1998 fatwa emphasized the American presence in Saudi Arabia and oppression of Iraq, and his October 2001 video invoked eighty years of Muslim "humiliation" and "degradation" at the hands of the West. Some of the most knowledgeable authorities have cited four centuries of decline in the Arab-Muslim world, and they point to the frustration of people detached from one world yet unable to find acceptance in another. Al-Qaeda itself was formed not in reaction to the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, but to the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets, at a time when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seemed to be working. As Olivier Roy has observed, "Al Qaeda's fighters were global jihadists and their favored battlegrounds have been outside the Middle East: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir. For them, every conflict is simply part of the Western encroachment on the Muslim ummah. . . ." Osama bin Laden did opportunistically add Israel to the list of adversaries, but the Jewish state remained of lesser priority than the United States, the "head of the snake."

Concern is by no means confined to the Bush Administration and its supporters. For example, a survey published in June 2005 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee found that non-proliferation and nuclear security experts assigned an average probability of 29 percent to a nuclear attack somewhere in the world in the next decade, a 40 percent risk of a radiological assault and a 70 percent estimate of some kind of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) weapon being used.

In addition, international institutions do not provide the collective security and alternate sources of order that many multilateralists and advocates of limited engagement would like to believe. The UN and its specialized agencies can do many things, but time and again, whether in Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur or Iraq, they fail to combat deadly perils in a timely manner. Cynical defiance by North Korea and Iran provides two cases in point.

The United States is left to play a unique role. This does not mean that America can or should always act unilaterally, or that it must serve as the world's policeman. But it does mean that without some kind of active American engagement, few of the most serious global problems, let alone threats to America's own national security and vital interests, can be dealt with.

For the Democratic majority these realities represent a severe external constraint. The difficulties posed by Iraq, Iran, proliferation, jihadists, terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and North Korea do not lend themselves to easy or obvious solutions. Nor, for that matter, do a wider range of issues on the foreign policy chessboard such as global warming, energy security, immigration and the balance of trade and payments deficits. In any case, for the time being there is little that the House and Senate can accomplish unless they cooperate with the Bush Administration.

The new Congress will play necessary roles in oversight, investigative hearings, the budget process, confirmation of presidential appointments and legislation. These are significant tasks, but they are more circumscribed than many legislators anticipated, and more limited than much election rhetoric promised. Two years from now, the House and Senate will have voted on funds for the defense budget and the conflict in Iraq, so those issues will belong to Democrats, too. And like the president who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2009, Congress will face recalcitrant foreign policy problems and a daunting agenda. In short, the Democratic-led 110^th Congress will find itself greatly constrained in its ability to shape foreign policy.

Robert J. Lieber is a professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University. His latest book is The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century(New York: Cambridge University Press, revised edition, 2007).