WASHINGTON – Representative Dana Rohrabacher, whose quixotic foreign policycampaigns made him persona non grata in Pakistan and Afghanistan and whobecame a rare US defender of Vladimir Putin, has lost his seat after 30years.
The 71-year-old Republican, whose exploits have included grabbing a gun tojoin Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet mujahedin, was projected Saturday to havelost, four days after midterm elections in which Democrats seized the Houseof Representatives.
Harley Rouda, a Democratic real estate developer, led Rohrabacher by fourpercentage points in a district in southern California’s Orange County, alongtime conservative bastion that gave rise to Republicans Richard Nixonand Ronald Reagan but where greater ethnic diversity has contributed to ashift toward Democrats.
After working as a speechwriter to Reagan, Rohrabacher was elected toCongress in 1988 on an aggressively anti-communist platform.
Yet his stern views belied a quintessentially Californian quirkiness as herelished surfing, playing guitar and, well before the issue was mainstream,supported legal marijuana, saying he himself had done “everything but drinkthe bong water.”
Rohrabacher’s joy in the limelight caused many colleagues to see him as arabble-rouser — but his statements had diplomatic repercussions.
– Putin’s favorite? –
Pakistan lodged protests and street demonstrations broke out afterRohrabacher in 2012 proposed a resolution — non-binding and with littlechance of congressional approval — calling for the independence ofBalochistan.
Rohrabacher was also refused entry to Afghanistan after infuriating thenpresident Hamid Karzai by calling him corrupt.
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Rohrabacher, whose office was decorated with memorabilia from brieflyfighting alongside Afghan guerrillas, met in 2001 with the then Talibanforeign minister and later joined the left in opposing US troop increases,seeing Karzai’s government as compromised.
More recently, Rohrabacher has been dubbed Putin’s favorite congressman.The onetime Cold Warrior has argued that radical Islam, not Russia, hasbecome the biggest global threat and that Putin was an ally.
After Donald Trump’s surprise election in 2016, speculation mounted thatthe new president — who has also voiced respect for Putin — would nameRohrabacher as US ambassador. However more traditional policymakers remainin charge.
Rohrabacher said he met Putin, then the deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg ona visit to Washington, in the 1990s and got into a drunken argument overwho won the Cold War.
“So we decided to settle it like men do when they’ve had too much to drinkin the pub,” Rohrabacher recalled in a radio interview.
They arm-wrestled. And who won? “He put me down in a millisecond,”Rohrabacher acknowledged. – APP/AFP
