AMERICA’s conduct of foreign policy issues, especially those concerning Muslim countries, often makes people in this country ignore some of the positive aspects of America’s political and social values, especially the strength of its democratic institutions.

In the last four decades, grave constitutional and political scandals have rocked America, involving two presidents, one vice-president, an attorney-general and other high-ups, but the commitment of its people and leaders to democracy and all that the word stands for have not eroded America’s position as the supreme power.

Whether it is Watergate or the Monica scandal — both of which rocked the presidency — or foreign policy issues, adherence to democratic norms and the reverence which the American people have for their constitution have enabled them to pull their country out of crises without impairing its vitality.

The Iraqi cauldron and the rising American casualties have created a crisis which is not of the same intensity as that unleashed by the Vietnam war in the ‘70s, nor does the Iraqi situation have domestic implications for the Bush presidency of the “fatal” kind the Watergate and Monicagate had for Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The former was pardoned by Ford, while the latter narrowly escaped impeachment.

Nevertheless, the results of November’s mid-term elections and the subsequent behaviour of the “ruling party” — America has no such concept — have demonstrated that, notwithstanding the unilateralism that is often attributed to the Bush administration, basically it is the will of the people as represented by Congress that decides the issues of the day in America.

America’s focus earlier this month was on the Iraq Study Group report, which calls for an American withdrawal by the first quarter of 2008 and for a revival of the peace process to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The report was presented to President George Bush by the group’s two co-chairmen, former Secretary of State Jim Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, and there is no doubt that it must have shaken him, because for all practical purposes, it constitutes a denunciation of his Iraq — in fact, the Middle East — policy by calling not only for a withdrawal from Iraq but also for “engaging” Syria and Iran for a role in resolving the Iraqi crisis. The latter especially amounted to showing a red rag to a bull. Yet President Bush had to show full respect to the report, even though he made it clear that nobody should expect him to accept the report in its totality.

It may be noted here that both Baker and Hamilton are “former” but the authority they have come to wield through the report because of its bipartisan character, the popular support it has received and the respect it has drawn from Congress and the media have made even the most ardent Bush supporter to be on the defensive. Left to him, Bush would never have sacked Rumsfeld; what made the defence secretary resign was the will of the people as seen in the outcome of the mid-term elections.

Coinciding with the ISG report was Robert Gates’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He was grilled by the Senators and asked to explain why his nomination by the president should be confirmed and whether his views were acceptable to Congress, the ultimate authority in matters of appointments to cabinet posts. This system is a manifestation of what in America is called “the sunshine law” that seeks to divest the working of the government of its arcane character and throws it open to public scrutiny.

The concept of congressional hearings does not find a mention in the American constitution. But it has grown over the decades to become a healthy and vital feature of American constitutional practices and goes to show how the state’s legislative arm checks the exercise of authority by the executive. In the British parliamentary system, the opposition in the House of Commons may have the pleasure of tearing the prime minister and his appointee apart, but there is nothing the House can do to abort the appointment. In sharp contrast in America, no presidential appointment is final unless it is confirmed by the upper house.

We can see the power of this legislative veto in the way the senate frustrated the appointment of three of Bill Clinton’s nominees — Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood for attorney-general, because both were found to have violated the relevant law by hiring illegal immigrants as nannies for their children; and Lani Guinier as head of the civil rights division of the justice department because it transpired during the senate hearings that Lani, a black, had racist views as contained in her articles in the law journal of the college where she taught.

The US senate is the world’s most powerful upper house for two reasons: first, unlike the tradition that money bills are the sole prerogative of lower houses representing the people, the US senate has a say in money bills, though “revenue bills”, as the Americans call them, must originate only in the House of Representatives. Second, the senate plays a major role in shaping foreign policy: it deals with aid bills and has the authority to order cuts if it feels that the amount of aid in a given bill is not justifiable. Besides, all treaties with foreign governments must be ratified by the senate.

This role in foreign policy matters stems from the fact that the senate represents the 50-odd constituent units, which jealously guard their right to have a say in matters affecting war and peace and to examine the treaties and alliances which could empower the federal government to drag them into war without their knowledge and consent.

Thus, all treaties and pacts which the federal government signs with foreign countries remain provisional till they are ratified by the senate. The clearest example of the senate’s power in foreign affairs was seen in the second decade of the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson, the man behind the League of Nations and the statesman made famous by his 14 points with their emphasis on all nations’ right to self-determination following the end of World War I, died a broken-hearted man because the senate refused to go along on the relevant treaties.

The other aspects of the checks and balances built into the system, the president’s veto and “pocket veto”, and the court’s powers to strike down a law it thinks violates the spirit of the constitution are beyond the scope of this article. But we can clearly see that the American political system did not crack much less collapse in the aftermath of the Watergate and Monicagate because of the American leaders’ strict adherence to their constitution.

We have heard much about accountability since Ziaul Haq’s days, but as we all know, military and political governments have used it as an instrument of persecution against politicians not on their right side. What we see in America is perpetual accountability in which acts of malfeasance are dealt with by the system after the media highlights them. During the Clinton presidency, a White House aide was sacked because he used an official helicopter to go to his golf course.

Even though his colleagues offered to pay for the fuel spent, that did not spare him the media’s wrath, and he lost his job. Similarly, among the charges levelled against Al Gore by the media was that he used White House telephones for party purposes. One also knows that apart from sex-related allegations against Clinton he was also criticised for making a phone call to a friend in the UN to get a job for Monica, an intern.

We claim to be Islamic, but going by our practical standards, these would hardly fall within the category of corruption.

We must end with Iqbal:

Soorat-i-shamsheer hay dast-i-qaza may wo qaum; karti hay jo her zaman apnay amal ka hisaab. (That nation is like a sword in Destiny’s hand which continually examines and scrutinises its actions.)