Steve Chapman1 accuses President Trump (and Vice President Pence) of hypocrisy for their tweets and statements supporting the protestors in Iran while they say nothing (or even say positive things) about Saudi Arabia.2 Several comments. First, if our silence on Saudi Arabia means we can’t say anything about Iran, then we could have never complained about human rights violations in the Soviet Union because we weren’t complaining about Saudi Arabia back then, either. Is Mr. Chapman really saying that if you don’t complain about human rights violations everywhere, you can’t complain about them anywhere?
Also, if you want to complain about presidents supporting Saudi Arabia despite its human rights violations, you need to criticize not only President Trump, but also Presidents Obama, Bush (43), Clinton, Bush (41), Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, etc.
Mr. Chapman complains that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, of our dealings with Saudi Arabia:
“It doesn’t mean that we don’t advocate for and aspire to freedom, human dignity and the treatment of people the world over. We do. But that doesn’t mean that’s the case in every situation.”
Mr. Chapman says: “In other words, we champion for Iranians rights that we would never demand for Saudis.” Yes. What’s the point? As I asked before, does that fact we don’t complain about human rights violations everywhere, mean we can’t complain about violations anywhere?
What President Trump did vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and Iran is not unlike what President Obama did when he bombed Libya because Colonel Gadhafi was threatening to massacre civilians there while not bombing Syria while Bashar al-Assad was killing civilians. President Obama bombed Libya because he thought he could and he didn’t bomb Syria (in spite of their crossing his red line with respect to the use of chemical weapons) because he thought he couldn’t.
Similarly, while Mr. Chapman quotes Secretary Tillerson disparagingly, he fails to quote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she said, in 2009, that China’s human rights record “can't interfere [with cooperation] on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.”
Mr. Chapman seems particularly upset that President Trump compares his statements in support of the Iranian protestors with Barack Obama’s relative silence back in 2009. Mr. Chapman even quotes statements President Obama made in 2009. I understand that Mr. Chapman thinks President Obama was a better president than President Trump, but trying to say that President Obama was as supportive of the Iranian protestors in 2009 as President Trump is of Iranian protestors today is a bridge too far (if not a couple of bridges).
Mr. Chapman asks how we would like it if foreign countries endorsed issues like Black Lives Matter, etc. Foreign governments have been interfering in our domestic politics for decades, so I am not sure how relevant that is.
Mr. Chapman also says that our support of the Iranian protestors allows the Iranian government to say that we are interfering in their country and that the protestors are a tool of the United States. The Iranian government is going to say that no matter what we do, so we might as well support the protestors.
Finally, Mr. Chapman says: “Maybe vocal American support will hearten the Iranian dissidents. Maybe it will burden them.” In response, I would point to Natan Sharansky (then Anatoly Shcharansky), a Russian dissident, who in 1986 was in the last group to be exchanged across Glienicke Bridge (Glienicker Brücke), the so-called “Bridge of Spies.” Mr. Sharansky told of hearing, while in a Soviet prison camp, that President Reagan had called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.” He and his fellow prisoners were, in Mr. Sharansky’s words, “ecstatic” that somebody was finally telling the truth about the Soviet Union.
Obviously, President Trump messes up lots of things, and even things he does right could often be done better. But in strongly supporting the protestors in Iran, he is getting it right.
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1 And many others.
2 I would prefer that President Trump was not so positive about Saudi Arabia, but then there are lots of things I would prefer President Trump did not do or say.
UPDATE (1/8/18 11:40 am): Fixed a typo in the penultimate paragraph.
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