What Obama should say about human rights and democracy
By Christian Brose What’s so puzzling about the news that the Obama administration is taking fire from human rights and democracy groups (and Will Inboden!) for slighting these issues is that it’s an entirely self-inflicted wound. And this at a time when Obama and company are dealing with more than their fair share of problems ...
What’s so puzzling about the news that the Obama administration is taking fire from human rights and democracy groups (and Will Inboden!) for slighting these issues is that it’s an entirely self-inflicted wound. And this at a time when Obama and company are dealing with more than their fair share of problems not of their own making. What’s more, they easily could have turned this entire issue to their advantage by following their own argument for engagement to its logical conclusion. Imagine if Obama (or Clinton) had said the following:
"When Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union, he always had a multi-part agenda, and human rights was always on it. He pushed Soviet leaders to end their aggressive foreign policy in the same conversations that he urged them to unclench their grip on the oppressed peoples within their empire. Reagan wasn’t afraid to talk, and he certainly wasn’t afraid to talk about human rights and democracy. I’m not either. I’ll engage with any leader if I believe it will advance our national interests, and where I disagree with how those leaders treat the people they govern, I’ll use my personal engagement to push for change. I’ll do so in public and in private, with non-democratic partners and autocratic adversaries. America’s interests demand that we do business with all kinds of regimes, but we’ll never check our values at their door as the cost of doing it. We can promote our security while also supporting our ideals. That goes for our treatment of people we detain on the battlefield and our engagement with governments that violate the basic rights of their citizens."
Would the administration agree with something like this and act on it? I’d assume so, but I can’t say, and that’s the problem. Instead of being on the offensive on issues that are the source of their greatest strength, the administration finds itself in the utterly bizarre and unenviable position of trying to convince its friends, let alone its critics, that President Barack Hussein Obama actually does care about human rights and democracy.
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