Will Drones Change American Policy?

Fighting al-Qaida with unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, long an American political program, was finally exposed in a small degree. It was developed during Bush’s term but Obama intensified it. Finally, this week, the use of drones became a background of important political events. Rand Paul’s filibuster could be the moment when the Republicans recovered from their failure in 2012 and became a serious threat for the president.

John Brennan, the architect of the unmanned aerial vehicle program, was finally approved by the Senate. But Rand’s 13-hour-long filibuster, or blocking of the legislative process, had a symbolic significance. Paul, a libertarian, expressed his resistance toward the Obama administration’s national security policy. Nothing has changed; the Republicans were attacking the president for years in this matter, but not necessarily because of the drones. Paul did not attack Obama because the president was too “soft” in these issues. On the contrary: the aim of his performance was to draw attention to the fact that the administration broke the law when using drones, including when it killed American citizens without trial for cooperating with al-Qaida. Paul attacked from the left wing position, not the right one, which Obama’s advisers probably did not expect. He got support from Democrats and Republicans.

The filibuster was an important moment for the Republicans, who, after their failure in 2012, were highly demoralized. Paul quickly became a symbol for many GOP factions. And it happened after Obama’s short “honeymoon” period, when support had dropped after the administration — in the opinion of the majority of commentators — scared the public too much with the impact of the sequestration. It seems that after the 2012 elections, policy is entering a new stage.