President’s Corner: What Will Bush’s Legacy on Human Rights Be?
Monday, August 06, 2007
Jackson Diehl, a columnist for The Washington Post, often writes on human rights, and he covers the topic with clarity, force and eloquence. His column today (“The Rush for a Legacy,” Aug. 6, 2007) focuses on the difference between President Bush’s rhetoric in support of human rights and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s more real politic approach that is leading her to attempt to cut deals with autocratic regimes.
On June 5, Diehl recalls, President Bush met with freedom fighters in Prague and said that he had asked the State Department to instruct every U.S. ambassador in “an unfree nation” to “...seek out those who demand human rights” and to meet with democracy activists.
Sadly, the State Department is not following orders. “With less than 18 months remaining in her tenure and that of President Bush, Rice has turned her famously disciplined focus toward delivering legacy achievements,” Diehl writes. “But her aims are utterly different from those with which Bush began his second term—such as the ‘freedom agenda’ he restated in Prague. Democracy promotion in the Middle East is out, replaced by a belated but intense effort to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Even more strikingly, the ‘regime change’ strategy that once marked Bush administration policy toward North Korea has been dropped in favor of an all-out effort to negotiate a rapprochement with dictator Kim Jong Il.”
Effective foreign policy requires both deal-making and defense of principle. Clearly the world would be more stable—and the U.S. would be safer—if we could achieve a Middle East peace agreement or get North Korea once and for all to stop its nuclear weapons program. But Diehl accuses the State Department of abandoning principle to chase “diplomatic mirages”—agreements that look closer and more real than they are.
When it comes to human rights, the gap between the administration’s stated principles and actual policies appears to be growing. Just consider two current issues where the administration is dropping the ball—Darfur and Iraqi refugees.
Last week President Bush said that he and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had discussed how to deal with the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Yet there are no new policies, and despite the president’s comment, Darfur appears to have fallen off the administration’s agenda. If the president wants a clear idea of what to do, he should read Nicholas Kristof’s column in The New York Times today. The title is “Mr. Bush, Here’s a Plan for Darfur.”
The administration’s policy toward Iraqi refugees has been all promise and no performance so far. About 2.2 million Iraqis have fled their country to escape violence, and their host countries, mainly Jordan and Syria, are increasingly worried about the burdens and security challenges the refugees pose. In February the State Department announced plans to resettle particularly vulnerable Iraqis into the U.S. and said it hoped to resettle as many as 7,000 here by Sept. 30. Since that announcement, the U.S. has resettled a grand total of 190 Iraqis. Thousands of Iraqis fled the country after they were targeted by terrorist groups because they assisted the U.S. as translators or drivers. They risked our lives to help our soldiers and diplomats in Iraq, and we are doing nothing to help them.
A broader problem is the increasingly desperate state of the approximately two million Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan. Few can earn a living, send their children to school or get medical care. Prostitution and crime are rising as Iraqis scrounge for money to buy food. Officials in Syria and Jordan are beginning to talk about Iraqis as the new Palestinians--a group that becomes more disenfranchised and subject to radicalization as hopes of returning home decline.
After visiting Baghdad last year, Secretary Rice said that “it is vital for the Iraqi people to know with certainty that America will not abandon them.” Iraqi refugees feel abandoned, and they know who abandoned them. The question is: Will human rights advocates around the world also feel abandoned by the U.S.?
--Ken Bacon
On June 5, Diehl recalls, President Bush met with freedom fighters in Prague and said that he had asked the State Department to instruct every U.S. ambassador in “an unfree nation” to “...seek out those who demand human rights” and to meet with democracy activists.
Sadly, the State Department is not following orders. “With less than 18 months remaining in her tenure and that of President Bush, Rice has turned her famously disciplined focus toward delivering legacy achievements,” Diehl writes. “But her aims are utterly different from those with which Bush began his second term—such as the ‘freedom agenda’ he restated in Prague. Democracy promotion in the Middle East is out, replaced by a belated but intense effort to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Even more strikingly, the ‘regime change’ strategy that once marked Bush administration policy toward North Korea has been dropped in favor of an all-out effort to negotiate a rapprochement with dictator Kim Jong Il.”
Effective foreign policy requires both deal-making and defense of principle. Clearly the world would be more stable—and the U.S. would be safer—if we could achieve a Middle East peace agreement or get North Korea once and for all to stop its nuclear weapons program. But Diehl accuses the State Department of abandoning principle to chase “diplomatic mirages”—agreements that look closer and more real than they are.
When it comes to human rights, the gap between the administration’s stated principles and actual policies appears to be growing. Just consider two current issues where the administration is dropping the ball—Darfur and Iraqi refugees.
Last week President Bush said that he and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had discussed how to deal with the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Yet there are no new policies, and despite the president’s comment, Darfur appears to have fallen off the administration’s agenda. If the president wants a clear idea of what to do, he should read Nicholas Kristof’s column in The New York Times today. The title is “Mr. Bush, Here’s a Plan for Darfur.”
The administration’s policy toward Iraqi refugees has been all promise and no performance so far. About 2.2 million Iraqis have fled their country to escape violence, and their host countries, mainly Jordan and Syria, are increasingly worried about the burdens and security challenges the refugees pose. In February the State Department announced plans to resettle particularly vulnerable Iraqis into the U.S. and said it hoped to resettle as many as 7,000 here by Sept. 30. Since that announcement, the U.S. has resettled a grand total of 190 Iraqis. Thousands of Iraqis fled the country after they were targeted by terrorist groups because they assisted the U.S. as translators or drivers. They risked our lives to help our soldiers and diplomats in Iraq, and we are doing nothing to help them.
A broader problem is the increasingly desperate state of the approximately two million Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan. Few can earn a living, send their children to school or get medical care. Prostitution and crime are rising as Iraqis scrounge for money to buy food. Officials in Syria and Jordan are beginning to talk about Iraqis as the new Palestinians--a group that becomes more disenfranchised and subject to radicalization as hopes of returning home decline.
After visiting Baghdad last year, Secretary Rice said that “it is vital for the Iraqi people to know with certainty that America will not abandon them.” Iraqi refugees feel abandoned, and they know who abandoned them. The question is: Will human rights advocates around the world also feel abandoned by the U.S.?
--Ken Bacon
Labels: Darfur, Iraqi Refugees, President's Corner
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