U.S. Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and the Myth of Virtuous Power

Introduction: Human Rights as the Soul of American Foreign Policy

American foreign policy occupies a unique place in the world. It is a non-homogeneous mixture of politics, economics, and the distinctive American cultural belief that the success of political and economic agendas cannot be separated from the way a country treats its people. Specifically, America has a difficult time forming positive relationships with nations that oppress, imprison, or otherwise trample their citizens' basic human rights to life, liberty, and the individual pursuit of happiness. As President Jimmy Carter stated during his administration, the connection between human rights and American foreign policy is fundamental:

"Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood." (White House ceremony commemorating the 30th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, December 6, 1978)

Carter in Cuba: A Former President Stirs Controversy

American foreign policy is also understood as a function of the presidency. The president must take the lead in presenting to the world a cohesive message that represents both America's past actions and any new initiatives unique to his administration. As a result, when a person or group of people travel to another nation and make statements that can be perceived as representative of U.S. government policy — without first receiving clearance, approval, and support from the current administration — the political machinery rushes into action. Each side works to protect itself while simultaneously mounting damage-control efforts.

Such was the state of international politics when Jimmy Carter traveled to Havana, Cuba, in May 2002. He stood shoulder to shoulder with one of the U.S. government's oldest adversaries, Cuban President Fidel Castro, insisting that the United States change its foreign policy and begin to recognize the needs of the Cuban people. Carter, although on a mission to convey friendship to the Cuban people and to seek common ground between Cuba and the United States, created a storm of controversy. As a former president, he represented the American government to the Cuban leader. As a worldwide humanitarian, his presence carried significant weight and created a newsworthy event. However, his message was contradictory to current American foreign policy. His efforts in Cuba, while built from the heart of the vision and values behind American foreign policy, presented the world with a divided America and offered an opportunity to call into question the existing policy toward Cuba.

According to Kane (2003), Carter made a point of meeting and encouraging local democratic, religious, and human rights activists. In a televised address, he endorsed the rights of dissidents and urged democracy on the island nation (Sullivan, 2002). He also advocated an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. In response, President George W. Bush's administration angrily charged Carter's latest venture as an inappropriate use of American clout. Bush himself was quick to reaffirm the existing sanctions on trade and travel and to restate the U.S. demands for free elections and a liberalization of Cuba's economy as preconditions for any relaxation of foreign policy sanctions. He was also reportedly angry — during a week in which he was finalizing an arms reduction deal with Russia — at being upstaged in the media by the retired elder president. Nevertheless, there was a certain irony in Bush's implied charge: Carter, after all, was the president who had originally placed human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, and he was now being accused of giving aid and comfort to a notorious violator of those same rights.

Bush in China: A Mirror Image of Carter's Mission

In his article, Kane questions the validity of Bush's criticisms of Carter by pointing out that Bush performed an identical foreign policy maneuver by visiting China and issuing a democratic challenge to the Chinese Communist leadership (Allen and Pan, 2002). Bush had not conditioned U.S.-China trade on democratic progress in China. He had, however, echoed similar themes to the Chinese that Carter had raised in Cuba. Bush invited the Chinese to consider the course of their historical economic transformation and to draw on specifically "American ideals of liberty, faith and family" (Allen and Pan, 2002). The parallel between the two visits was difficult to ignore and substantially undermined the administration's criticism of Carter's conduct.

Kane then reaches further back to draw the outline of the foundation of U.S. foreign policy and how it has become centrally intertwined with ideas of human rights and the collective treatment of citizens by their government. He argues that because the Western Enlightenment is the historical genesis of both human rights and American cultural values, it is not surprising that there is a large overlap in their substantive content. Both traditions — regarding the rights of the individual and the way a government treats its people — insist on "religious, political, and civic rights and freedoms" and "both advocate the rule of law and democracy" (Kane, 2003).

Conclusion: Virtue, Politics, and World Leadership

While it could be argued that a way out of this impasse would be to reconceptualize the nature of political realism and redefine the cultural positioning of virtue to somewhere outside the realm of public policy, to do so would fundamentally change the foundation on which America was built. Even if this were theoretically possible, practically instilling a separation of action from motive and virtue in American foreign policy would be an enormous undertaking. Americans have been very successful in regulating their actions in accordance with social and moral values. History suggests that the periods in which the nation has worked hardest to separate these two ideals from one another have also been periods of the most limited American success.