Obama: US is to blame
OBAMA From previous page Soon after that, the Russianbuilt Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran began operations. As rebels tried to bring down the government of Syria’s Bashar alAssad in early 2011, Russia supplied the Syrian dictator with military equipment by sea. Reuters reports that Moscow sold Damascus $1 billion dollars of military hardware since the uprising began. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Russia in June 2012 against sending helicopters to assist the Syrian regime in its attacks against civilians and rebels.
In August 2011, Putin, then the prime minister, accused the United States of living “like a parasite” on the world economy. At a May2012 international missile defense conference in Moscow, Russia’s top military officer Gen. Nikolai Makarov denounced US-NATO plans to build defenses against ballistic missiles launched from the Middle East.
Referring to potential Eastern European sites for such defenses, Gen. Makarov made a remarkable threat: “A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens.”
In short, in the 39 months since Obama announced that great powers do “not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries,” Russia has exerted itself to defy the United States and NATO and increase its political investment in rogue regimes — in particular in Syria and Iran. In the 3 ¹ /₂ years since the policy’s inception, the Obama reset has been a headshaking disappointment.
Bowing to dictators
The view that the Obama policy is naïve and bumbling has some merit and helps account for some of the wrong steps regarding Russia. But it ignores the larger problem of Obama’s negative conception of America’s role in the world.
Within the community of progressive American academics — the community of which Obama and key members of his administration have long been proud members — the idea of America as leader of the free world commands little respect. The very term “free world” is disfavored, as is the idea of the United States as leader.
Rather than see American power and assertiveness as desirable, progressive faculty members at leading universities commonly look at them negatively, as major sources of international tension. According to this view, building bridges to states that fear American power will earn the United States respect and encourage harmony, but strengthening existing alliances and supporting democratic friends reinforces American influence and aggravates fear abroad of American hegemony. The United States is seen as more the cause of international problems than the answer. It is a theme the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick in 1984 famously referred to as “blame America first.”
In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama argued that America has a deplorable history of tolerating or aiding regimes with atrocious human rights records. As president, however, he has been guilty of this offense.
Russia has a poor humanrights record over recent years. Its officials routinely violate the human rights of their critics, often arranging for those critics to be beaten and even murdered.
Instead of condemning these abuses, Obama seeks Putin’s favor in anticipation of negotiations on further reductions of US and Russian nuclear arsenals, a deal that Putin says would require US concessions on missile defenses. Such concessions would meet with strong objections in the Senate. Obama showed his eagerness for a new arms treaty when he asked then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to defer pressing for missiledefense concessions until after the US presidential elections. In a quiet aside to the Russian leader, Obama promised more flexibility then — a comment that embarrassed the president when, through an open microphone, it was overheard by the press corps.
Obama pursues new arms control agreements so eagerly because he sees them as steps toward “nuclear zero,” a world entirely without nuclear weapons — a grandiose goal he endorsed early in his presidency.
It was quite a turnabout for a man who criticized US policy during the Cold War because he said opposition to communism blinded successive US presidents to the humanrights violations of regimes with which they cooperated in pursuit of security. Now, in pursuit of nuclear zero, he refuses to acknowledge the significance of the Putin regime’s humanrights abuses.
Ignoring human rights
Taking human rights lightly has been a hallmark of the Obamaadministration. Even prominent progressives who had supported his election denounced the way he downplayed human rights in his outreach to the authoritarian regimes of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority.
The unwillingness to make human rights a prominent issue in his Russia policy, therefore, is of a piece with the president’s general deem phasis on human rights abroad. A key reason, it seems, is that Bush was famous for his “Freedom Agenda” and Obama did not want to sound themes closely associated with his predecessor.
But it also bears noting that progressive academics generally disdain the human rights rhetoric that both Democratic and Republican administrations have used since World War II. According to the left progressive critique of US history, such talk is mere sanctimony and hypocrisy because America has wrought so much harm around the world, and mistreated people so badly at home, that it lacks the moral authority to stand up for the human rights of others.
Obama has never opposed human rights in principle — on the contrary. But especially at the outset of his presidency, he seemed to believe America owed bows, apologies, and confessions to its many victims across the world and therefore had no right to put itself forward as a standardbearer for human rights.
Obama can’t seem to understand why, now that his predecessor is no longer in office, Russia is not more friendly and cooperative. He does not view Putin’s Russia as a complex, troublemaking, declining power with great potential to damage its own people, its neighbors, US allies, and America itself. Rather, he is intent on chasing the Russian president in the hopes of signing yet another outmoded arms control treaty that can be misrepresented as moving the world another step closer to the dubious fantasy of nuclear zero. To facilitate the chase, he must downplay the Putin regime’s violations of human rights. This he does with no apparent appreciation of the way that promoting democracy in Russia could not only uphold American principles but also serve American interests.
The one thing that can be said for the administration’s Russia policy is that it truly reflects Obama’s understanding of world affairs and of America’s proper place therein. This is not good news.