By David K. Shipler
Hypocrisy
is a cardinal feature of foreign policy, and it wasn’t invented by Donald
Trump. Saying one thing and doing another, or doing different things
simultaneously, or saying contradictory things about the same situation are
venerable traditions in diplomacy, and no more dramatically than in the area of
human rights.
Most
countries skate along easily in this slippery practice, but the United States
sometimes bumps up against its inconvenient national myth: that America is the
beacon of democracy, the shining city on a hill, the bastion of freedom, the
model of liberty—and promotes the same the world around. When the collision between idealism and
realism occurs, American policy toward whatever country is committing egregious
violations either hits a wall and retreats, or it finds a pragmatic detour
around the obstacle to continue on its way, rationalized by national security
and commercial interests.
The
second route, returning soon to business as usual, seems likely to be taken by
Washington in the case of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for
the Washington Post who had exiled
himself in the US to write critically of Saudi Arabia’s anti-democracy. As
Trump has pointed out in various contorted statements, the US has a strong
stake in close relations with the kingdom. He appears willing to stand up
against the clamor of bipartisan outrage over the gruesome spectacle, as
portrayed by Turkish authorities, of Khashoggi’s torture and dismemberment
inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and the widespread skepticism about the
official Saudi claim that he was killed during a fistfight.
Perhaps if the Saudis had used
Israel’s technique against terrorists—a precisely placed bomb or a drive-by
shooting—the reaction would have been muted. It has certainly been muted over broader
transgressions by Saudi Arabia, such as its lack of a free press, its intolerance
of dissenting political speech, and its ongoing carnage of civilians during the
war in Yemen. No administration, whether Democratic or Republican, has seen fit
to sever the ties of accommodation. America’s supposed passion for human rights
has been overcome by several considerations.
