Is it Human Rights the U.S. Wants, or Stability?

People don’t doubt that human rights hold a high place in the minds of Americans. But it is obvious that even if the ideals human rights and democracy asserted by the U.S. are important guiding components of the country’s foreign policy, they certainly are not always the most important principles.

In these days of sweeping change in Egypt, the U.S. is one of the most worried countries in the whole world.

Although the U.S. has many garrisons in Europe and Asia, the center of Washington’s foreign policy has, for a long time, been the Middle East. It was this way not only during the Cold War era, but even after the Cold War ended, it was still thus. In 2001, a group of Muslim extremists originating from the Middle East launched an attack on America’s own mainland, and then the U.S. initiated a 10-year war on terror throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Dealing with security challenges from the Middle East has caused concern in the hearts and minds of Americans all the while. Even if the U.S. has recently wished to adjust the main points of its foreign policy and military strategy, sorry — the Middle East is not suited to this.

Egypt is America’s strategic pillar in the Middle East. In the past, great powers such as the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union fermented the restoration of the Jewish state, while Egypt, with a profound responsibility to the Arab race, led nations all over the region in a war against this Jewish nation; but overall, the losses exceeded the gains.

Not until Anwar el-Sadat led the peacemaking between Egypt and Israel did the fragmentation of the Arab world’s policy toward Israel occur and did Egypt-Israel relations make progressive steps towards stability.

Thus, Egypt lost its status as the constant leader of the Arab world, but also gained strong support from the U.S. Over the last 30 years, Israel and Egypt are the countries that have received the most U.S. aid. Sadat was assassinated soon after winning the Nobel Peace Prize and his close assistant Hosni Mubarak succeeded to the throne. Mubarak continued the moderate policy towards Israel, winning the praises of the U.S. From 1981 when he took office throughout his continuous 30-year hold on power, Mubarak came to be viewed as a present-day “pharaoh.”

Due to the attention on Israel, the U.S. has, for a long time, given a high level of support to Mubarak’s government. Thus, the human rights flaunted by the U.S. are nowhere to be seen in its foreign diplomacy. To both the “state of emergency” and Mubarak’s 30 years of rule, Washington turned a deaf ear. Under the state of emergency, the public could not enjoy many civil rights. According to the security needs of a country, the people must be able to understand the need for authorities to temporarily adopt special measures. But the state of emergency became Egypt’s normal state of affairs for 30 years. To this, the U.S. remained apathetic; this is not so normal.

People don’t doubt that human rights hold a high place in the minds of Americans. But it is obvious that, even if the human rights and democracy asserted by the U.S. are important guiding components of the country’s foreign policy, they certainly are not always the most important principles. For a long time, the U.S. has not clearly expressed disapproval of Egypt’s human rights violations; this is because it does not wish to interfere in Egypt’s internal affairs and hurt the confidence and strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Egypt.

In confronting this democracy movement in Egypt, the U.S. is suffering a great deal. If Mubarak is lucky enough to pass this test and is elected, and in addition, the U.S. is remains a steadfast friend, is this not unjust? But when it comes to a nation’s interests, there are hardly any morals to speak of. In the past, in order to ensure that a Mubarak-led Egypt cooperated with the U.S. and Israel, the U.S. certainly did not put the country’s civil rights at the forefront of its foreign relations with Egypt. Soon the reign of Mubarak will be over and Obama’s government will just have to find another candidate so that it might make an early investment in the next era of Egyptian government.

This is the U.S. response: when it becomes certain that Mubarak’s reign will be overthrown, the U.S. will want to ensure that the next era of Egyptian government will still be friendly towards the U.S. and Israel, and it wants to prevent the so-called extremist Muslim group, the Muslim Brotherhood, from gaining political power. To do this, the U.S. must swiftly intervene. Consequently, the U.S. national security team rapidly turned around and both the president and the secretary of state consecutively called out, “the U.S. has consistently pressed for reform in Egypt, and now requests that there be an immediate transition in Egyptian government.”* In other words, Mubarak must immediately step down. To this, Egyptian government reacted with utter disgust. It could be seen even more clearly in Mubarak’s eyes, in the pain it caused him.

And yet, this was not the first such performance in the name of U.S. interests. 25 years ago, when a popular uprising overturned President Marcos in the Philippines, the U.S. also followed this same pattern. After drifting apart from President Marcos after 20 years of relations, the U.S. embassy in Manila had private communications with the opposition leader Benigno Aquino. The reality is that people didn’t see the U.S. consistently oppose Marcos’ centralized power, nor did they see their old friend “American justice”; and even less visible was U.S. respect for the Philippines’ internal affairs. The U.S. either supports dictators or encourages the masses to push back against those with an iron fist, and before the new government can even be established, it has already connected with its key players.

People welcome relations between the U.S. and the governments of newborn Egypt or the Philippines, but if we pay more attention to its dealings with these countries’ old governments, hasn’t the U.S. already loudly announced its opinion on human rights and democracy? When morality and values are always drowned out by security and strategic concerns, the human rights that the U.S. preaches about undoubtedly get discounted. But this isn’t strange; what’s strange is this: since the U.S. cannot consistently support democracy and human rights, then when it supports the masses in overthrowing Mubarak or Marcos, it shouldn’t put on the appearance that its support stems from a yearning for democracy.

(Shen Dingli, Executive Dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies)

*Editor’s note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.