Column: Democrats cede human rights

Are Democrats ceding the human rights mantle to Republicans? The recent spectacle of a blind Chinese dissident being whisked by wheelchair from our embassy in Beijing suggests that the issue of human rights still has the ability to command Americans' attention. In fact, it might be one of the few foreign policy issues where daylight remains between the two presidential candidates.

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu

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Consider the following: A recent survey by the political scientists Josh Busby, Will Inboden and Jon Monten found that Democratic foreign policy specialists were less likely to identify human rights as a "very important" policy priority (about 50%, compared with nearly 85% of such Republican specialists). Indeed, on this issue the Democratic Party has shifted to the center.

Republicans, meanwhile, have continued their embrace of neoconservatism, which places greater weight in the sanctity of U.S. force to protect human freedom abroad (Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is stuffed with such dewy-eyed conservatives).

The reasons for this shift are manifold: Progressive Democrats might feel that human rights have been co-opted to serve other interests and no longer have faith in Washington's ability to promote them with integrity. They may associate the cause with the failed democracy-promotion agenda of Obama's predecessor. Or perhaps the party has strategically softened its stance to project a more macho air on national security and win over undecided voters. Still, the survey suggests progressive Democrats could be at risk of abandoning, or at least de-prioritizing, deeply held principles of human rights that have guided the party from its inception.

Obama's spotty record

Take Obama's own spotty record. He balked at granting the Dalai Lama an Oval Office invitation and didn't press the issue of human rights on his visit to China. He punted on his campaign promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison. And his administration has tried to block the a measure that would freeze assets and deny visas to Russian officials guilty of human rights abuses. Perhaps most controversially, Obama has stepped up the use of drone strikes abroad, killing undisclosed numbers of civilians.

Obama has also been a reluctant interventionist, preferring a hands-off approach to the Arab Spring and protests in Russia, Iran and other authoritarian states. While accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Obama preached the importance of "just" interventions. "To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism," he said, "it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Yet, his speak-softly stance has drawn fire from his Republican opponent, particularly Obama's policy toward Iran and Syria. "President Obama's lack of leadership has resulted in a policy of paralysis that has watched (Bashar) Assad slaughter 10,000 individuals," Romney said recently.

Shifting sands

Part of the shift from human rights is a function of today's Democratic elite, Obama included. While the Baby Boom generation's world view was shaped by Vietnam, the new elites' formative years were the 1980s and 1990s. This era included intervention successes, notably Iraq in 1991, but also disasters (Lebanon in 1982-83 and Somalia in 1993). As Peter Beinart noted in his 2006 book, The Good Fight, the party of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman has traditionally focused on U.S. legitimacy abroad and self-improvement at home. Democrats from Obama's generation understand America's moral fallibility, as well as the importance of international institutions. In the political scientists' survey, Democrats were much more favorable toward strengthening institutions such as the International Criminal Court than Republicans were.

Yet, liberalism has also been about promoting America's core values, especially human rights, on the world stage, both through international institutions and, at times, military intervention. Democrats cannot allow the failures, dramas and expenses of the latter to deter them from supporting the full spectrum of U.S. tools, including force, when necessary to support their ideals.

When a Pakistani doctor is tried for treason for assisting American forces or the Syrian government slaughters thousands of its own citizens, these are moral issues that should not come at the expense of U.S. strategic concerns with Islamabad or Moscow. There are times when hard-won principles such as the responsibility to protect have to trump pragmatic interests.

Human rights, of course, involve trade-offs and prioritization — not every crisis should command U.S. intervention. And some notable progress on this front has been made by this administration. Burma's release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and our intervention in Libya top this administration's list of achievements. Obama also deserves kudos for launching the Atrocities Prevention Board, a government panel to appraise the threat of mass killings, and for enacting tougher sanctions against governments' use of technology to trample human rights.

But as we disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan, and as the fight against global jihad recedes, human rights should return to the forefront. No, the issue is not expected to top voters' concerns this election season, but by ceding the moral high ground on this issue to their opponents, Democrats do themselves, and their intellectual forefathers, a disservice.

Human rights are the last issue the White House should be seen as "leading from behind."

Lionel Beehner is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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