When it comes to supporting democracy and human rights, President Obama's performance abroad is certainly cause for disappointment, but not despair. Although the president takes the lead in foreign policy, his is not the only game in town. The role of players beyond the executive branch is often underestimated.
Well before Ronald Reagan spoke of rolling back the "evil empire," members of Congress made inroads into the policy of détente with the Soviet Union. Legislation conditioning the USSR's most favored nation trade status on freedom of emigration - the Jackson-Vanik amendment - had implications well beyond its seemingly esoteric linkage of trade to the right of Russian Jews to emigrate. Sponsored by Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik, the amendment challenged the Soviet Union's absolute control over all its citizens, not just Jews, and raised human rights to a new level in U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union.
Jackson-Vanik also showed the impact that intervention by an individual congressman could have. In negotiations with Communist bloc ambassadors, Senator Jackson offered his acquiescence to administration waivers of the legislation's effect in return for freedom for many dissidents. Individual members of Congress also visited dissidents while traveling behind the Iron Curtain and, despite opposition from the Ford administration, set up an independent body to monitor the Helsinki Accords provisions on human rights.
The China case is both similar and less successful. For a decade, congress was responsible for the high profile given to human rights in China policy. After the June 4, 1989 massacre of democracy protesters in Beijing, Representative Nancy Pelosi led efforts to allow Chinese students to stay on in the U.S. Together with Senator George Mitchell, she also worked to condition China's trade status on respect for human rights. In response to this pressure, in 1993, President Clinton agreed to make the grant of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status conditional upon measurable improvements in return for Congress abandoning legislation blocking MFN.
It is impossible to predict what would have happened had Clinton kept his word and pressure had been applied on the PRC consistently over a period of time. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters, fearful of losing MFN, the Chinese government released political prisoners and made other concessions. However, in 1994, Clinton reneged on the deal he made with Congress, announcing that he was "de-linking" human rights from trade policy with China. Several years later, Congress and the president made China's MFN trade status permanent and Congress' leverage, not only against China but also with the executive branch, was lost.
One outcome of the struggle over China policy was the victory of the idea that economic growth, increased trade and a general policy of "engagement" leads to political liberalization. That has not been the result, however, in China, but the approach still dominates our policy not only toward China, but also other countries. In addition, most of those in Congress who might have led efforts to put democracy and human rights back on the agenda have either retired from Congress or died. Not surprisingly, those who remain, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have little interest in challenging a popular president holding a majority in both chambers.
Of course, Congress isn't the only alternative to the administration. Private, non-governmental organizations also have the capacity to wield influence on behalf of democracy and human rights abroad. In the 1980s, undeterred by opposition from the Carter administration, the American labor movement, led by Lane Kirkland, channeled aid to Poland's Solidarity movement. Solidarity welcomed the aid, rejecting the notion that American aid compromised the anti-communist resistance. "Help can never be politically embarrassing," the Polish labor leader Lech Walesa later said. "It was a very good thing that they helped us."
Help, after all, is what matters. And if these examples tell us anything, it's that, succeed or fail, individuals are responsible for America's most admirable efforts to advance democracy abroad. In the late 1970s, facing trial in Moscow, the dissident Natan Sharansky was allowed to review the prosecutor's file on his case. The name of Senator Jackson - whom Sharansky had never met or spoken to on the telephone - appeared hundreds of times.
Which names of members of Congress will be found in the files of Iranian, Russian, Chinese and Egyptian prosecutors?
