Elliott Abrams

Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us. ”

It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all Americans would, they have no actual policy to achieve that goal - and they subordinate it to all their other policy goals. ”

Now in its third year in office, the Obama Administration has never championed the cause of human rights. Its slow reaction in June 2009 to the stealing of the election in Iran and the birth of the 'Green Movement' there, and its delay in backing the rebellions in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, are evidence of this problem. ”

In Jordan, where the prime minister is always a commoner, the king has announced some new reforms that would tend to move the country toward a more democratic system: Notably, the prime minister would emerge from the victorious political party, not from back room conversations in the royal palace. ”

If you said to people you can cast a secret ballot on whether to turn back the clock and have Morsi in power again, I don't think very many people in Washington would turn back that clock. ”

The war on drugs is not being won, and it continues to threaten stability and democracy not only in the Andes but throughout the Caribbean as well, where tiny police and military forces are outclassed by the sophisticated equipment in the hands of traffickers passing through the region on the way to their market in this country. ”

The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy. ”

In public, an admission of technological inadequacy would be too embarrassing. ”

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier. ”

The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint. ”