Dysfunction in Washington: US foreign policy riven by partisan politics

VETERAN politicos and journalists in Washington still recall the two dramatic attempts at impeaching a sitting American president.

In late 1974, the House of Representatives was on its way to impeach Republican President Richard Nixon for the attempted cover-up of his involvement in the so-called Watergate Scandal, to be followed by a vote to convict him in the Senate when the embattled president decided to resign from office. In December 1998 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach Democratic President Bill Clinton for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. But President Clinton was later acquitted by the Senate and went on to complete his second term in office.

At the time of the two historic political scandals in 1974 and 1998, the international system was in the midst of major geo-strategic and geo-economic transformations that required the US president, the Leader of the Free World, to invest time and energy on critical decisions involving US foreign policy and national security.