June 1st, 2010 by Josh

After reading through the administration’s freshly minted National Security Strategy, Jackson Diehl observes that President Obama makes no effort to associate international engagement with combating tyranny or promoting democracy. “Obama has already demonstrated that he does not accept Bush’s conclusion that the promotion of democracy and human rights is inseparable from the tasks of defeating al-Qaeda and establishing a workable international order,” he writes. “But nowhere in his 52-page doctrine is there a coherent explanation of why.” Jennifer Rubin of Commentary agrees, and argues that this is in part of a function of Obama’s “infatuation with the international community, multilateralism, and consensus.”

But Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara notes that, like Presidents Clinton and Bush before him, Obama emphasizes the need to comprehensively “promote democracy and human rights abroad.” The difference, however, might lie in the implementation of such goals, and the Economist proclaims that the NSS in fact signals a return to an era of greater realpolitik. “The Obama doctrine is not only less ambitious than his predecessor’s but arguably less idealistic … Under Mr Obama the neocon notion of spreading democracy by force has gone.” Instead, the new strategy indicates that America “will seek ‘principled engagement’ with non-democratic regimes.”

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Diplomacy, Freedom, Human Rights, Multilateralism, Neocons, US foreign policy |