The ‘principled pragmatism’ of the Obama administration

Historically, when U.S. leaders have spoken of pragmatism or realism in foreign policy, it has often been code for subordinating ideals to other strategic and geopolitical priorities. That’s why alarm bells went off among human rights activists last week over Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s policy of “principled pragmatism,” which she laid out in a speech at Georgetown University. Just days before, in his Nobel acceptance lecture, President Obama had grandly reaffirmed the role of the United States as a standard-bearer for the universal aspirations of human rights and dignity. Clinton also committed firmly to those lofty goals, saying people must be free not only from tyranny but from hunger and “the oppression of want.” But her admonition that tactics must be “pragmatic and agile” led some to wonder if the rhetoric would be matched by action. Coupled with the administration’s policy of engagement with adversaries such as Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, some worried this would signal to U.S. diplomats and foreign leaders alike that the Obama administration might turn a blind eye to abuses.

The administration has sent conflicting messages and produced a mixed record on human rights in its first year -- admittedly still early days in a presidency. But we don’t think it is ignoring abuses. Obama took office with a promise to clean house and restore the United States’ image abroad after the self-inflicted damages of the Iraq war and the global campaign against Al Qaeda. To that end, he banned the use of torture and ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a move that is still incomplete. The administration rightly decided to try self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in federal court, although regrettably many of the more than 200 other remaining prisoners apparently will continue to be held in preventive detention or face only military commissions. And although the administration has not fully abandoned the rendition of prisoners from the countries where they are captured to others where they may be interrogated harshly, Obama has declared a moratorium on secret prisons. He recommitted the United States to the Geneva Convention governing war practices, joined the flawed but potentially valuable U.N. Human Rights Council and has engaged with the International Criminal Court. In sum, although far from perfect, Obama has gone a long way toward fulfilling his goal of restoring lawful practices and, with them, U.S. moral authority.

Obama also sought to distance his human rights policies from those of President George W. Bush, whose pursuit of democracy and freedom was perceived internationally as bullying and inextricably linked to regime change. Whereas Bush called out tyrants publicly and tried to isolate rogue regimes, Obama has struck a conciliatory tone and called for dialogue. This page generally supports the idea of engagement, whether to bring about nuclear deals with Iran and North Korea, a rapprochement with Cuba or other goals, and understands that it often means sitting down with those responsible for grave abuses. There is no inherent contradiction between engagement and pressing a human rights agenda. The administration has shown this with Myanmar; sanctions against the country remain in place, and Obama used his Nobel speech to support arrested opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, yet he has opened communication with the military dictatorship for the first time in decades.

We share the concern of human rights activists that the administration may have gone too far in some cases, such as when Obama postponed a meeting with Tibet’s Dalai Lama until after his visit to Beijing in November to avoid antagonizing the Chinese leadership. There are limits to U.S. power and influence, but we believe the administration must not pull punches with allies or adversaries when speaking out on human rights in order to confront other problems -- the global economy and climate change in the case of China, sanctions against Iran with Russia or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Egypt, for example. Human rights are a strategic interest too. We have seen the costs when we cease to stand for liberties and lose the support of civil society activists and ordinary people around the globe; Americans suffer the consequences when there is no free press or consumer advocates to report on tainted goods we might import.

The world still looks to the United States for moral leadership: In China, it is on behalf of minority Tibetans and Uighurs, lawyers, consumer advocates and AIDS activists; in Russia, toward an end to impunity for the killing of journalists and human rights activists; in Egypt, for the protection of opponents of President Hosni Mubarak’s 28-year state of emergency. Latin America is watching to see if Colombia and Mexico will receive unfettered aid in the war on drugs, regardless of the abuses committed by their militaries; in Africa, activists seek to ensure implementation of the 2005 peace accord between northern and southern Sudan, and peace in the country’s western region of Darfur, in exchange for U.S. incentives offered to the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes. In Congo and Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, to name but a few more, human rights activists are looking for the Obama administration to apply pressure.

Clinton said last week that there is not a single formula to use in pushing for rights around the globe, and that tactics must reflect realities on the ground. We agree, and in that regard we believe the administration has correctly maintained a distance from the Iranian civic opposition to prevent Tehran from branding the protesters as Western puppets, although attention to their cause must be sustained. She was almost brutally honest in acknowledging that it’s easier to get tough with a small country that receives substantial U.S. aid, such as Honduras, than it is with a world power such as China. Fair enough. But in Oslo, Obama warned of consequences for regimes that brutalize their own people. In the next year, we too will be watching for progress.