WASHINGTON DIARIST APRIL 1, 2009
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Is it really possible that in a Democratic administration the championship of human rights and the promotion of democracy will no longer figure conspicuously in the foreign policy of the United States? It is really possible. Oh, the stirring words will be spoken; the stirring words are always spoken. But in the absence of policies one may be forgiven for not being stirred by words. And so far even the language has been wanting in ardor. Idealism in foreign policy is so 2003. After all, the opposite of everything that George W. Bush believed must be true. He overreached abroad and underreached at home, so we will underreach abroad and overreach at home. Myself, I am for overreaching and overreaching. And so I remain chilled by Hillary Clinton's froideur in Beijing, by her artful impersonation of Brent Scowcroft. "We pretty much know what they are going to say," she offered in defense of her ritualistic syllables about China's persecution of its dissidents. She is right, of course. The regime in Beijing is singularly immune to moral appeals. They do not do ethical critique. It is also true that they are our creditors, though I do not see their hoard of T-bills invoked to thwart the discussion of our other demands of them. And I hear stranger excuses for the new hard-heartedness: a friend of mine, a smart and fervent liberal, chastised me for my disappointment in Clinton by reminding me sardonically that the Chinese "have only raised a hundred million people out of poverty." Not a word about health and literacy in Cuba, though. I thought that the question of the relation between political progress and economic progress--the priority, philosophical and political, of freedom to development--was long ago settled, and not in favor of early profits.
It appears that we need to recall, in this springtime of liberal realism, a few rudimentary notions about democratization and the cause of human rights. For a start, it does not require us to go to war. Rightly or wrongly, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for strategic reasons, for reasons of national security; and the splendid attempt to establish democracies, which may or may not succeed, was a corollary of a strategic analysis of the causes of our insecurity. Democratization, since it proposes to replace one political culture with another, is a policy of destabilization, and so it is an evolutionary enterprise, and takes time, and can be achieved only indigenously, by the people themselves. But often they need help, which, in the real world so beloved of Democrats, means American help. This help can take many forms. The scandal of Clinton's mildness in Beijing was not that she squandered an opportunity to convert the autocracy to our way of thinking about justice. It was that she scanted the men and women in China (and in Burma too, about which she found time only to speculate on the efficacy of sanctions) who already share our way of thinking about justice. It is one of the central features of our account of justice that it is universal: the sovereignties of nations and the specificities of cultures are (mostly) wonderful, but human rights make us all into cosmopolitans. When the Chinese foreign minister told Clinton that we should "continue to hold human rights dialogues on the basis of equality and mutual respect," he was speaking sinister nonsense. In this matter China is not our equal, it is our inferior, and we cannot respect them without disrespecting ourselves. What Clinton brought the many victims of Chinese repression was a cup of despair. On what grounds can she justify the demoralization of these valiant people, or their abandonment? (Here Niebuhr will not serve.) Who really believes that the full panoply of Chinese-American relations, our sensible preference for cooperation over conflict, cannot withstand the espousal of our ideals? In China, our values are hardly about to displace our interests; and China has interests, too. Anyway, it is an axiom of Barack Obama's worldview that the moral reputation of the United States is itself a fact of strategic consequence. The wretched of the earth have been waiting for America to rediscover--what? the balance of power?
The renaissance of diplomacy has begun. We will talk with Iran. We will talk with Syria. We will talk with the Taliban, or with some of it. We will talk, sooner or later, with Hamas. If what I think has happened has happened, the Awakening in Iraq has been promoted from a military approach into a geo- political approach. The whole world is now Anbar. It is not hard to see why. The sullen rectitude of Bush and Cheney was going nowhere. There are urgencies, such as the inexorable uranium of Iran, that will not allow us to leave any means untried. And if we flip Assad, or isolate Haqqani, it will be for the good. We must be in all things empirical: a dogmatic aggregation of all our enemies may blind us to useful complexities. So probe, probe, probe; let the word go forth to the madrassas in Waziristan and Swat and Qum and Gaza that we are all God's children; and never mind that we pretty much know what they are going to say. But sooner or later we will hit the limit of what conscience can bear. There are only so many tyrants and terrorists we can engage before we stain our principles, before the politesse becomes repulsive. Also, the anti-Americanism in the world cannot all be imputed to the recent behavior of the United States. Neither the president's face nor his name will inspire movements and governments to discard their dreams. I worry that liberal realists are mentally unprepared for certain eventualities. Liberal realism is either a betrayal of liberalism or a betrayal of realism. I wish the administration luck, but I wish it also a fallback plan.
A hawk has settled somewhere in my neighborhood, and the other morning it made its kill in my garden, beneath the nandina bushes festooned with red berries like ornaments for the slaughter. It sat with a lordly calm over its ripped prey, and when I approached for a closer look it flew off, its carrion in its claws, leaving a bloodied mess of pigeon feathers in the otherwise gentrified dirt. What was so fascinating about the savagery was that it made no sense to protest it. Here was realism, and the normativity of power. There was nothing sublime about it. I paused over the unnatural character of goodness. I re-read Mill: "the duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow but to amend it. " The idea of human rights is a distinction not only of our policy, but also of our species.
Leon Wieseltier is The New Republic's literary editor.
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27 comments
Unusual for me, I mind less this piece as it is more simply written, clearer in its attempt at argument, less frantically convoluted, abstract and interior than W.’s usual Diarist entries. But, even for minding it less, in the end, I find W. impaled on a conundrum out of which he cannot reason his way. He begins by decrying the apparently emerging under emphasis on human rights in Obama’s administration. W. calls the emerging policy by (what I think is) a neologism: “liberal realism”. He means by that, I think, Scowcroftian (say) realism married to a generally liberal administration. Not trusting “stirring words”, which “are always spoken”, and requiring proof by policies, W. nevertheless was “chilled” by Hillary Clinton’s “froideur” in Beijing, where her disappointing best, for W. not nearly good enough, were her “ritualistic syllables about China's persecution of its dissidents.” And here begin the conundrum and some cracks in the argument. W. torpedoes stirring words; they are empty without policies. He concedes the correctness of Hillary’s defense of her understatement: “Beijing is singularly immune to moral appeal”. He nevertheless fails her by the rejected criterion of stirring words even while understanding the inefficacy of a more outspken human rights criticism, which is to say, his critique of her is incoherent by his own grounds for judgment. What would W. have had her do: sound ringing phrases, detached from policy, which help no one and, therefore, gratuitously piss off the Chinese? Why: so he can feel righteous? W. might call this a cold liberal realism; I’d call it sensible restraint in the actuality of the circumstances. W. says, mind you, he likes to overreach at home and abroad. But overreaching in one of its meanings is “To defeat (oneself) by going too far or by doing or trying to gain too much”. That definition feeds the conundrum. Obama’s administration cannot, save to imperil possibly American interests, afford to overreach, and cannot, therefore, accommodate what W. is for. W. needs to face the impasse between what his (self)righteousness demands and what the real world cannot provide to him. That impasse, the way things are even by his own concession, renders his plea for greater engagement hollow and, finally, self satisfyingly shrill, however nicely worded and clever it seems—that seems, perhaps, and rather, “… windy suspiration of forced breath”. (The previous administration, by the way, gave good lessons on overreaching’s consequences.) Then W. presumes to remind us of “a few rudimentary notions about democratization and the cause of human rights” and winds up quite frothy on the issue. Firstly though a glaring contradiction in W.’s reasoning: one the one hand democratization by W’s lights “…is an evolutionary enterprise, and takes time, and can be achieved only indigenously, by the people themselves”; on the other hand, though, America's in Iraq and Afghanistan was, incidental to its main aims, “a splendid attempt to establish democracies; and, more on the other hand, democratization is destabilizing “since it proposes to replace one political culture with another.” Here are hands never firmly to grasp each other. After the contradiction comes the froth bubbling up from the unrealizable overreaching W. demands in his opening paragraph. If it is so, as I have argued, that a wise counsel of prudence informed what Hillary said and did not say in Beijing, then it is absurd for W. to get into a lather about the “scandal of her mildness”, and to declaim that that mildness brought to the people of China, and Burma too, only “a cup of despair”. What cupful were they expecting from yet another American dignitary coming to China: the weak tea of stirring words not to be backed up by policy; the o’erbrimming waves of stridency which simply would have spilled over and back onto America? What basis does W. have for presuming Hillary on her trip demoralized anyone? America will do nothing in, or about, Darfur. What does anyone expect it to do about China, it have been stipulated that empty gestures are useless at a minimum, and likely worse than useless. But W. is getting off on getting his high dudgeon on. The fact of the matter is that the “wretched of the earth”, Franz Fanon’s phrase, are going to stay wretched for some time to come, with nothing but some slow and prudent and incremental help from America from time to time. As I say, all of this makes W.’s high sounding plea and high sounding demand as empty as they are high sounding. And then this: “But sooner or later we will hit the limit of what conscience can bear. There are only so many tyrants and terrorists we can engage before we stain our principles, before the politesse becomes repulsive.” To this I repeat one word: Darfur. More of the conundrum: W. lauds the need to speak to Iran: “There are urgencies, such as the inexorable uranium of Iran, that will not allow us to leave any means untried.” But the human rights abuses in Iran are comparable to the human rights abuses in China. America needs to speak to China about many things including perhaps help with Iran, let alone speak with Iran. On what principle ought America be more outspoken against China than Iran, not to mention any number of other unlovely regimes? The outspokenness will surely hamper the speaking; and the conundrum continues to work its way through the piece. Next to finally, noting nature’s savagery, failing to note that goodness is not unnatural, and quoting a snippet from Mill help not at all in the rescue of what is a high soundng demand for international engagement of a certain kind that everywhere implodes for amongst the reasons above set out. Finally, I know nothing about W.'s personal committments and engagements, but if he is not, given this piece, involved in some human rights work, in some human rights organization, that kind of thing, to some degree, then this piece, so full of foaming rectitude, and that personal uninvolvement in my book would mark him an odious hypocrite who does not walk as he talks.
- Itzik Basman
March 15, 2009 at 4:02am
Don't blame me for the run oniness of the above. No paragraphs allowed. It's grammatical discrimination.
- itzik basman
March 16, 2009 at 1:00pm
I really liked Wieseltier's article when I first read it, but I think Basman's critique is excellent. I hope Wieseltier responds to it.
- Mizzou
March 19, 2009 at 9:04pm
While I appreciated B's rebutal, I thought it was a little unfair. Taken to the extreme, of course W's position becomes unwieldy: I would think everyone, W included, would agree that hard-lining against China would do little more than piss them off, as noted by B. W even mentions that a degree of pragmatism is necessary. More realistically, I would say that W is asserting himself to be further along the human rights continuum than Clinton, and that she should have done more to help the cause. Not to the extreme to which B was suggesting that W was suggesting, but more than C provided. And it is here that it is in this middle ground that I think it becomes impossible for us to say whether being on B or W's side of the line is "right." The further you get towards human rights, the more we encourage the world to move closer to a set of values that, if magically incorporated into all society's, would theoretically bring about a better world. However, the further we move away from B's standpoint, the more we risk illiciting an inflammatory response from China that could disrupt the more subtle diplomatic approach as well as what seems to be a natural (though slower than we would like) progression in that direction. Both sides have valid points, and it seems like it comes down to crunching political "numbers" to determine what balance would best bring about both sides' ultimate goal of the global respect for human rights. And this is where I, as a PhD candidate in molecular biology, am useless. On a side note, Mill's utilitarianism would actually suggest that it isn't human rights that are ultimately (intrinsically) valuable, but rather the "happiness" they produce. To this end, the realities of running a country such as China could mean that, at least at some points in its history, democracy and human rights might lead to less happiness (e.g. industrialization of a country it's size, and the subsequent elevation of much of its people out of poverty, was only possible via the sacrifice of human rights to some degree). As such, W's assertion that our valuing of human rights is clearly superior deserves at least some second thought.
- Tombo
March 26, 2009 at 3:27pm
Hate to break it to you Americans, but the rest of the world, the real world not the butchered term the EU and US uses, sees human rights more as a political tool to push and conform other countries to become your puppets than anything else. In essence, you only practice what you preach when it's convenient. Glance over at Africa, you chastise China in Sudan over Darfur calling China as complicit in genocide. Yet head over to Egypt where Mubarak has been in power for 28 years but they don't get chastised because he's friendly to western businesses something Sudan obviously is not. Until you officially pursue human rights fairly and equally throughout the world, people will see it more as a political tool.
- Pepe
March 26, 2009 at 6:31pm
"Rightly or wrongly, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for strategic reasons, for reasons of national security; and the splendid attempt to establish democracies, which may or may not succeed, was a corollary of a strategic analysis of the causes of our insecurity." Yet despite our human rights failures in those countries and beyond where rendition and torture took place, we must continue to lecture the Chinese and others on their inferior standard of human rights. We are the home of the "free and the brave" wich we must resolutely maintain, no matter the cost to others beyond our shores. The people of the USA must continue to dream the all American Dream and they must never be allowed to awake. Should others suffer and burn to sustain that dream, any hypocrisy and perceived strategic necessities are justified. That's the sole reason why we enjoy riding our high horses, for that's where we dream our hypocritical dreams.
- AFewGoodMen
March 26, 2009 at 8:50pm
Again: what would Mr. Wieseltier have had Mrs. Clinton do (i.e., say, cuz there ain't much she can do)?
- porkido
March 27, 2009 at 2:16am
Good article. We already can see a patern on the Obama Administration: grand declarations on "respect" and "new beginnings", on one side, crudest realism or pragmatism, on the other (not really realistic or pragmatic, in the end, since very ill informed). So propaganda moves (sometimes very damaging ones) and feeding of systemic violence, both on the internal and external plans. I'm glad I'm no Chinese dissident. Disgusting type.
- Rodrigo de Posa
March 27, 2009 at 3:12am
I thought genocide was the one issue where we don't have "sensible restraint" but a bright line. "Never again" wasn't supposed to mean "we'll talk and talk and talk and talk and appoint commissions and special envoys and wag our fingers while we watch thousands slaughtered right before our eyes." The question of whether Obama (or the Dems or us) have ANY human rights bright lines is independent from the realpolitik balancing of remaining human rights issues.
- Lymon1
March 27, 2009 at 6:14am
Bravo - Leon has awoken from his sleep of reason, and is shaking his terrible locks. Long overdue clarity - I wish it had come sooner, and I wish he had seen that Hillary (despite her performance in Peking) would have been a better choice for us and the world. He's wrong on many of the details, but at least he is now in a position to see the terrible consequences of electing someone who feels that democracy does not matter.
- grasmere10
March 27, 2009 at 8:31am
While I feel sure Basman makes some valid points, what I take away from my reading was a) arrogance, and b) a penchent for mental masturbation. I suggest a re-write with an eye toward clarity and succinctness.
- goldpython
March 27, 2009 at 8:36am
Leon just hates Obama. Has from day one. We have so much going on right now. Obama is more overloaded with messes to fix than any leader in a long long time. Give the guy a bloody chance, for crying out loud.
- mary
March 27, 2009 at 8:41am
any excuse to diss Obama, Wieseltier will take.
- mary
March 27, 2009 at 8:43am
obvious answer to your question NO Obama and his supporters do not give a hoot about human rights
- dan pittinb
March 27, 2009 at 9:59am
This was a wonderfully, literate, commentary which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. With that said, I think that your feelings about our relationship with China is a bit naive. First in your reference to the raising of one million people from poverty in China and then asking a question about literacy in Cuba is a gross miscarriage of mixing apples with oranges. The subject matter is China which is unique in the world of politics. Again your reference to god does not hold water in reference to China because they are not a religiously guided state. Your reference to "Also, the anti-Americanism in the world cannot all be imputed to the recent behavior of the United States" is another vision to rewrite the history of the past 8-10 years. Havin spent the majority of that time living and working out of the country, it was our sitting president and his policies that gave a new birth to anti-amiricanism. The great majority of the people I discussed this with overseas assured me that the still liked America but it was Mr. Bush and the policies he implemented that brought about their anger. Again wonderful column but still slanted in the direction you wanted it to go. Keep it honest please. By the way Ms. Clinton is absolutely right in her response that will come from China because they have always felt that human rights issues within their country is an internal matter as is any probs we have inside ours we would scoff at anyone (as we have som many times done) that questioned what we do inside our own borders.
- Bill Smith
March 27, 2009 at 10:43am
Other countries are sick of hearing about "human rights" from the USA, and especially Israel. The hypocracy has been too much for too long. All other countries know its simply an excuse for espionage. Yankee doodle pretends to shed a tear for a single unfortunate in jail for publishing a newspaper, while its own media are more sychophantic than any "state owned media". It sends morons like bono to Africa with a few bags of idaho wheat, and then starves millions thru its agriculture policies. The phrase "human rights" means nothing to anyone now, because it has always been used by people who never meant anything by it ever. Why bother examining anything Bush said, everything simply translates to..."keep watching my left hand, while I loot the US treasury with my right".
- qwok
March 27, 2009 at 11:11am
The Bush administration seemed to be confused about "public diplomacy", and it seems to me that Mr. Wieseltier shares some of that confusion. The Bush people: (a) were lousy at public diplomacy in its proper sense, communicating with the broad population, and (b) conducted too much of their traditional diplomacy in public, notably with Iran. When trying to change the behavior of a regime, it is often counterproductive to make demands in public. Like it or not, it often works better to give the other government some face-saving opportunity, so that to the extent you prevail on them to change their behavior, they can claim they were not "pushed around" by the US or anyone else. This is particularly true with China, where the vast majority of the population is strongly nationalistic, and reacts with hostility when they perceive their nation under assault from outside (they have historical grievances in this regard, grievances which do not excuse the current government at all, but which are skillfully exploited by the rulers). Here's what we don't know: what did Secretary Clinton say in private to China's leaders? That is where the most productive dialogue might take place, and it may take years to know the story.
- BPJ
March 27, 2009 at 2:47pm
Got to hand it to this guy; this is not only a good article on a timely topic, but he ALMOST came clean on admitting that Bush and Cheney were right on Iraq and their general approach to the War on Terror, and that the left not only got off track, but they have morally paralyzed our message to the world. Keep this up and you may have conservatives like me reading New Republic more often.
- robmac
March 27, 2009 at 3:12pm
The Western Left was wrong on Fascism, Communism, and now Islamism. Why do these people still have foreign policy cred? They are nihilists, who have abandoned decency? You can see their anti Western propaganda has been very successful. Westerners are the new Jews, villified and condemned as greedy thieves, criminals, and villious blood suckers. Good Lord!
- EscapeVelocity
March 27, 2009 at 8:14pm
The perfect is the enemy of the good. -- Voltaire Paralyzing the good from action, because they are not perfect....essentially is a regressive position. When your main emphasis is on anti Western propaganda, you are essentially regressive.
-
March 27, 2009 at 8:18pm
Itzik, you are such a blessing!
- WandreyCer1
March 27, 2009 at 9:29pm
Despair for the poor citizens of the US, because it is we who will suffer, for Clinton, Obama and his cabinet of corruption mean to impose the Chinese status quo here. You ignore that at your own risk.
- Mari
March 29, 2009 at 2:50pm
robmac has it right. Bush is liberal in the pre-sixties sense of the word. He really does believe that all people deserve to live in freedom. Contemporary "liberals" such as the "leaders" in Congress, believe that foreign heads of state deserve respect just to the extent that they are anti-American and anti-Semitic. True, those dictators have murdered millions of innocent people. But don't you see, it's all our fault. (I forget why, but I’m sure the minions of the "liberal" fascist left will remind me.)
- bulbman1066
March 30, 2009 at 2:52am
Thanks Jill.
- itzik basman
March 30, 2009 at 12:36pm
Leon, Please do your loyal readers a favor and respond to Mr. Basman, who in my opinion has reached the heart of the matter.
- Response
March 30, 2009 at 1:11pm
Mr. W. & any posters should indicate where in the Constitution the President is described as a "champion" and a "promoter" for amorphous "rights" in other countries. And how many centuries will it take for tribal Afghans to realize the exquisite plans that Obama & TNR posters have for them?
- jeanag
March 30, 2009 at 3:05pm
This point of view encompasses so much why others around the globe grimace when they hear it. First, it simplistically mimics Ayn Rand's sense that moral and political values can be reduced down to a metaphysical, "universal" code such that the way Leon Wieseltier thinks about human freedom and justice is the optimal manner in which any "free" and "just" mind would. This is, to say the least, historically preposterous. Secondly, it is embraced by him as though the reality of American foreign policy did not utterly trample on the freedom and justice of others who got in the way of the Monroe Doctrine writ large. The Monroe Doctrine being a brutal example of American Imperialism throughout Central and South America. The U.S. has put into power and/or helped sustained some of the most vicious and autocratic plutocracies the world has ever seen in her "own back yard". And when Europe was colonizing enormous chunks of South East Asia, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East where in the world was Wieseltier begging to differ? This is cherry picking a historical narrative on an epic scale. One barely knows where to begin to guffaw when he suggests the "wretched of the Earth" await America's rediscovery of its long lost Wieseltirerian Values. What in world does this have to do with, say, the 20th century? And nothing has changed just because Bush is now Obama.
- george walton
April 5, 2009 at 12:47am