In her July 13 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, “How U.S. Officials Can Craft Innovative Human Rights Policy,” former Ambassador Sarah Mendelson recalls her work as a senior, politically-appointed foreign policy official in the Obama administration. Her personal mission, as she recalls, was to “elevate human rights”–first within USAID, and later when she worked for the US Mission to the United Nations.
Her initiatives to promote civil society and human rights within small powers such as post-Ben Ali Tunisia are admirable. However, her implicit suggestion that we ought to elevate human rights in our relations with great powers such as China and Russia is strategically incorrect. Our country’s policies vis-a-vis great powers (and to some extent medium powers, such as Turkey) must be guided, first and foremost, by a grand strategy rooted in our strategic interests, not one that aims to reflect our values.
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