Obama’s U-Turn on Democracy and Human Rights
Here is a Barack Obama puzzle: Why did the president turn 180 degrees on a key foreign policy question in a little more than two years
The issue is whether promoting democracy and human rights should be an American priority. In his annual address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Obama offered a clear answer: No.
Speaking specifically about the Middle East and North Africa, the president identified four core interests: defending allies from aggression, ensuring access to oil, attacking terrorist networks that threaten Americans and stopping weapons of mass destruction.
America cares about democracy, human rights and free trade, he said, but “we can rarely achieve these objectives through unilateral American action.”
Though it was unusual for a U.S. president to reject a values-based policy so explicitly, the underlying view was not unfamiliar; former president George H.W. Bush would have found it congenial.
What was striking about it, as my colleague Jackson Diehl pointed out, was how directly it repudiated a doctrine Obama had outlined in a speech at the State Department just 28 months earlier.
In that address, Obama recited a similar list of core interests, but he said those alone could no longer animate U.S. policy. Instead, he said, the United States would champion universal rights and political reform, and not as “a secondary interest.”
On the contrary: Support for democracy would be a “top priority,” Obama proclaimed, “that must be translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal.”
The president acknowledged that such a values-based policy would be difficult and would encounter setbacks.
“But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region,” he said, “we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.”
Two years later, Obama the idealist is gone. What happened?
Officials at the National Security Council, after promising an explanation, ended up furnishing no comment. But here’s one possible answer.
When Obama vowed a redirection of U.S. policy in May 2011, the Arab Spring was young and hopeful. Tunisia and Egypt seemed on track toward democracy. In Libya, U.S. military force had helped depose a dictator; in Syria, peaceful demonstrations against another dictator were just beginning.
“In Damascus,” Obama said, “we heard the young man who said, ‘After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity.’ ”
But Bashar al-Assad responded brutally, and his opponents took up arms. Obama predicted and wished for Assad’s imminent defeat, but he resisted calls from inside and outside his administration to help bring that defeat about, not with U.S. troops but by training and supporting the rebels.
By the time of Obama’s U.N. address, generals in Egypt had toppled the elected government, and Libya was plagued by uncontrolled militias. Worst, Syria was a humanitarian and foreign-policy disaster, with well over 100,000 people killed and millions more forced from their homes. In northern Syria, al-Qaeda affiliates were establishing the kind of safe havens that the United States went to war in Afghanistan to eradicate.
This can’t be an easy thing for a president to live with, as President Clinton made clear after Rwanda. So Obama fashioned a new doctrine.
Not only was intervention in Syria not feasible, an arguable but defensible position, but the United States would never act to “prevent mass atrocities and protect human rights” unless “the international community” agreed to act in concert. Not only could the United States not impose democracy in Syria, but it would not make it a priority in Egypt, where “core interests like the Camp David Accords and counterterrorism” would take precedence, or apparently anywhere else.
In 2011, Obama portrayed himself as cleareyed about the pitfalls of democracy promotion but committed for the long haul nonetheless.
“It will not be easy,” he acknowledged. “There’s no straight line to progress, and hardship always accompanies a season of hope. But the United States of America was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. And now we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights . . . .”
The season of hope passed, and with it Obama’s commitment. Now, he makes clear, it is up to the United Nations to step up. And if it does not?
“If that’s the world that people want to live in, they should say so and reckon with the cold logic of mass graves,” Obama said.
On the surface, at least, he seems prepared to live with that cold logic. But Americans do not like to think of themselves as a nation that will wait for the “international community” before stepping in to help those in need or avert a mass atrocity, and I doubt Obama really likes that idea either. Syria is a hard case that has pushed him toward bad law. Maybe this won’t be his final answer.
Fred Hiatt – Editor of The Post’s editorial page, Hiatt also writes a biweekly column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.
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Fred Hiatt
October 20, 2013
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Former U.S. President Joined the Terrorist State of IRI

On September 27, 2013 former President Hussein Obama stretched out his hand and offered diplomatic engagement to the terrorist Hassan Rouhani through a phone call. The United States has long-standing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and human rights record. The United States State Department has described Iran as an “active state sponsor of terrorism. President Obama has in fact answered the Iranian’s plea, (when in 2009 they shouted “Obama Obama ya ba oona ya ba ma”, meaning you are either with them or with us), and abandoned them by taking the terrorist IRI’s side. Iranian will never forget his disfavor to them.
You Don’t Deal with Terrorists

How dare the world communities led by U.S. allow themselves to make “deal” with the terrorist State of the IRI? The US State Department has described Iranian regime as an “active state sponsor of terrorism," why? Because Mullahs’ regime has killed American Marines by bomb, because Mullahs’ regime has killed American soldiers using IED, because Mullahs’ regime supports terrorist groups abroad, because Mullahs’ regime has a dreadful human rights record at home, and because Mullahs’ regime helps bloodthirsty Bashar al-Assad in killing Syrian people. ............................................................. No cause justifies terrorism; the World should not be soft on terrorism but must respond strong and fight this evil to eradicate its root from the surface of the earth.
Obsolete types of Governments for the 21st Century

In the 21st century the Monarchy, Theocratic, and Communism are considered obsolete and impractical type regimes whose outcome are nothing more than autocracy and corruption in addition to fostering slavery and idolatry for its own people. …………….. The only down-to-earth type government is the one OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE that can bring freedom and prosperity for its grassroots. And that is a secular democratic republic government based on the principle of human rights. The overriding characteristic of this demotic type regime is its short-cycle default that provides for the leader to govern, in other word it roots out any long-term opportunity for the sovereignty, which is the key element in institutionalizing corruption in the society.
Why in the Future Free Iran, a Secular Democratic Republic Type Sovereignty is the only Legitimate Government Option?
If the World Wants to Witness Peace on Earth

If the World Powers really want to bring peace and prosperity to the world, they have to eradicate the source of terrorism in our globe, which has been deeply rooted in Iran by the terrorist Mullahs occupiers. It is these Islamic zombies in Iran who are behind all the inhuman crimes against its own people and across not only the Middle East, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, etc, but all over the globe. As long as they are alive the world will not witness the peace it deserves. If GWB (George Without Brain) had attacked Iran instead of Iraq in 2003 (miscalculation due to the lack of brain or too much oil-polluted brain) and exterminated these Islamic zombies, the world would have never been in this mess today. Again nobody should ever expect peace on our earth as long as the terrorist IRI mullahs are alive.
Islamic Regime in Iran, a Puppet of Foreign Powers

If it wasn’t for the continuous step-by-step support of the World Powers, these lousy Mullahs, headed by yesterday-beggar and today-criminal billionaire KHAMENEI and the professional crook RAFSANJANI, could never enforce this criminal regime of bunch of thugs and ruffians over the people of Iran for more than 38 years. Alongside our struggle on raising awareness among the Iranian grassroots against ignorance, we have to point a major part of our efforts to counteract and defy the revival subsidizing source for this brutal and puppet regime by the so-called hegemony of Western and Eastern Powers, and ask them to redirect the focus of their provision and care toward the oppressed people of Iran.
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Fear is the main source of superstition
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.” ........... (Bertolt Brecht)
Struggle for Democracy
The Criminal Regime of IRI, 3 Decades of Bloodshed and Massacre
Oppressed People of Iran Warn the Green Reformers

You the Green Reformers and/or any Religious Nationalists get out of the way of the oppressed people of Iran. Iranians will never put their faith and trust into the hands of parasitic mullahs, the puppets of the world powers’ hegemony. After the fall of IRI, a secular democratic government based on principle of human rights will be secured in Iran. Our nation will not have a national religion, people with or without any religious faith will live together, while nobody will be questioned for his faith conviction. Any religious practice will be performed at homes and places made for this purpose and will not be allowed in public.
Bani Sadr, Vertex of the Beegh Trianlge

Bani Sadr and two other Islamic members, Ghotb zadeh and Ebrahim Yazdi, who were known as the vertices of the “Beegh Triangle” (meaning triangle of dumbs), were the three stinky Islamic commissioners and the foreign powers’ mercenaries, whose commissions were to expedite the establishment of the provisional government for delivering the country to Islamic Mullahs. In other word these three people were the pioneers responsible for the misery that our nation has entangled in today. Bani Sadr, this Islamic jackass hasn’t quit his charlatanry yet and continues to deceive people by his Islamic political prattling. He keeps dreaming of returning to Iranian political stage, he will take his dream to his grave with him.
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