WSJ Weekend interview
By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
Cape Town, South Africa
(snip)
The Africa trip caps a series of recent rollout events: A major policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations, a return to the Sunday interview shows, and an Asian tour. Her elbow better, Mrs. Clinton is trying to define her own voice on the international stage, in her role as chief diplomat for the Obama foreign policy... "What we're doing first and foremost is reasserting America's interests and our commitment to Africa and our belief that there are best practices," she says, adding the U.S. didn't want to "sugarcoat our concerns." Kenya's prime minister complained of "neocolonialism," but the message went over well with the local media and population, who welcomed the pressure on their corrupt political classes. Elsewhere, the confident assertion of values gets muted in favor of what Mrs. Clinton called in her Council speech "a more flexible and pragmatic posture." Neorealism is the new hot word in Washington. On her first trip abroad, to Asia, when asked why the U.S. isn't pressing China harder on human rights, she said, "We already know what they are going to say." The administration puts non-proliferation ahead of democratization in Russia and Iran.
Why push human rights and democracy so hard in Africa, I venture, and not in Russia or China? Some see a double standard. "First I think it is important to stress that human rights remain a central driving force of our foreign policy," she says. "But I also think that it's important to look at human rights more broadly than it has been defined. Human rights are also the right to a good job and shelter over your head and a chance to send your kids to school and get health care when your wife is pregnant. It's a much broader agenda. Too often it has gotten narrowed to our detriment." Mrs. Clinton adds, "we have very strong differences with the Chinese. We have stood up and talked about that and pointed it out and they will continue to disagree with us. We know that." But the administration sees an opening to get closer with Beijing on the global economy, climate change and North Korea—and touts results already.
(snip)
She takes the same approach to Russia. Engagement—in this case, "a restart"—is supposed to win a significant power's "cooperation" on non-proliferation in Iran. De-emphasized are the reasons the relationship turned bad, such as last year's war in Georgia and NATO's plans to take in new members from the ex-U.S.S.R., though Mrs. Clinton says "I want to reassure our friends and allies that there are absolutely no tradeoffs" to improved relations ties with Russia.
(snip)
Speaking at a televised town hall in Nairobi, Mrs. Clinton recalled that the U.S. earlier this spring hesitated to engage Zimbabwe, lest it be seen to "legitimize" the regime of Robert Mugabe. But in Iran, the administration kept open and repeated the invitation to sit down with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as huge post-election protests roiled the country. Mrs. Clinton says she doesn't think the U.S. legitimized the regime or undermined the demonstrators, "because the impetus for change is coming from inside Iran." Addressing the criticism from the left as well as right that the administration should have put efforts to aid the democracy movement ahead of its long-signalled plans to reach out to the regime on the bomb, she says that, "A nuclear-weapons armed Iran is not in anyone's human-rights interests. That is a direct threat to the lives and the livelihoods and the stability not only of the region but beyond."
(snip)
he experience with North Korea since the Clinton administration struck a deal in 1994 would seem to be a cautionary one for Iran. Mrs. Clinton disagrees. "I think we made progress, then we backslid, then we made some more progress" in North Korea, she says. "I guess I would question the wisdom of the Bush administration reacting to the discovery that there had been cheating on the framework agreement and withdrawing everyone. I think countries test limits, especially countries with the world view like the ones we're discussing. I think it's better to discover their efforts to circumvent the agreements and the limits and then"—she hits an open palm against the arm of the couch—"come down harder. Don't withdraw, don't leave the field. Look at the result of that. They began reprocessing plutonium. That was not in anyone's interest."
(snip)
Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations last month, Mrs. Clinton said, "With more states facing common challenges, we have the chance and a profound responsibility to exercise American leadership to solve problems in concert with others." An aide says the speech sums up her view that the major and emerging powers broadly share America's view of global threats. Washington merely needs to better use "our power to convene" to get everyone to address them. This emerging Hillary Doctrine, I suggest to her, appears to take an optimistic view of human nature, not to mention Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Communist Party. "I am someone who hopes for the best and prepares for the worst," she says. "I am a realist about the world in which we find ourselves. But I also believe that it's quite remarkable that every country has recognized climate change as a problem." She adds the consensus on nonproliferation, "a few outliers" notwithstanding, and the need to work together to tackle the global economic crisis and on swine flu to her list of shared challenges.
(snip)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574348843585706178.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
