Michael Rubin: Don't Sacrifice Human Rights for Iran Diplomacy
[Michael Rubin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.]
Iranians who took to the streets this summer to protest electoral fraud failed to win a new election. But they nevertheless returned concerns about the Islamic republic's human rights record to the international stage.
On June 20, U.S. President Barack Obama declared: "The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."
Today, the debates sparked by the summer unrest remain fierce. Inside Iran, politicians call for an investigation into torture and murder at the Kahrizak detention center. Meanwhile, within the Iranian parliament, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's supporters call for new prosecutions of alleged "velvet revolution" plotters.
Outside the Islamic republic, the debate is just as strong -- as officials in the United States and Europe struggle with the balance between engagement on nuclear proliferation and a desire not to legitimize the worst human rights offenders. At an October 5 forum at George Washington University, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tackled the issue directly, explaining that the Obama administration did not see the issue as an "either/or" proposition...
... Still, Clinton's Soviet analogy is apt -- during the Cold War, every U.S. administration maintained dialogue with Moscow. The history of U.S. dialogue with the Soviet Union, however, can also provide pointers for how Washington can engage an oppressive regime without ceding human rights advocacy.
At the height of the Cold War, successive administrations struggled with the balance between national security and desire to criticize human rights abuses. Congress inserted itself into this debate with passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975, which denied most-favored-nation status to countries that restricted emigration. The U.S. foreign policy establishment was furious. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger saw the amendment as an impediment to further detente. But with the end of the Cold War, historians generally credit the amendment with stripping the Soviet Union of legitimacy and emboldening internal dissident.
The Helsinki Accords, finalized in the summer of 1975, further intertwined human rights and traditional statecraft. While hawkish critics lambasted the accords' de facto recognition of the most abusive regimes, they also prioritized freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief. The Helsinki Commission subsequently became a bully pulpit from which to measure states' respect for human rights.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan entered office skeptical of his predecessors' engagement with what he labeled "the Evil empire." It is an ironic, then, that he initiated unprecedented detente and disarmament, albeit only after overseeing a massive military buildup so that he could negotiate from a position of strength...
Read entire article at Middle East Forum
Iranians who took to the streets this summer to protest electoral fraud failed to win a new election. But they nevertheless returned concerns about the Islamic republic's human rights record to the international stage.
On June 20, U.S. President Barack Obama declared: "The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."
Today, the debates sparked by the summer unrest remain fierce. Inside Iran, politicians call for an investigation into torture and murder at the Kahrizak detention center. Meanwhile, within the Iranian parliament, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's supporters call for new prosecutions of alleged "velvet revolution" plotters.
Outside the Islamic republic, the debate is just as strong -- as officials in the United States and Europe struggle with the balance between engagement on nuclear proliferation and a desire not to legitimize the worst human rights offenders. At an October 5 forum at George Washington University, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tackled the issue directly, explaining that the Obama administration did not see the issue as an "either/or" proposition...
... Still, Clinton's Soviet analogy is apt -- during the Cold War, every U.S. administration maintained dialogue with Moscow. The history of U.S. dialogue with the Soviet Union, however, can also provide pointers for how Washington can engage an oppressive regime without ceding human rights advocacy.
At the height of the Cold War, successive administrations struggled with the balance between national security and desire to criticize human rights abuses. Congress inserted itself into this debate with passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975, which denied most-favored-nation status to countries that restricted emigration. The U.S. foreign policy establishment was furious. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger saw the amendment as an impediment to further detente. But with the end of the Cold War, historians generally credit the amendment with stripping the Soviet Union of legitimacy and emboldening internal dissident.
The Helsinki Accords, finalized in the summer of 1975, further intertwined human rights and traditional statecraft. While hawkish critics lambasted the accords' de facto recognition of the most abusive regimes, they also prioritized freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief. The Helsinki Commission subsequently became a bully pulpit from which to measure states' respect for human rights.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan entered office skeptical of his predecessors' engagement with what he labeled "the Evil empire." It is an ironic, then, that he initiated unprecedented detente and disarmament, albeit only after overseeing a massive military buildup so that he could negotiate from a position of strength...