US human rights diplomacy’s “magical mirror”

2021-July-27 16:35 By: GMW.cn

After Joe Biden came to power, the US has again held up the flag of its so-called human rights diplomacy, announced several times that "human rights would return to the core of US Middle East policies" , and showed more concerns than the previous government over human rights conditions in Middle East countries. Public opinions in Middle East countries are unresponsive with doubts and criticism.

The US human rights diplomacy being unpopular in the Middle East is not accidental. The US has to bear the blame for the deteriorating human rights conditions in the Middle East. The US is responsible for deteriorating human rights conditions in some Middle East countries and created humanitarian disasters in several countries such as Iraq. As for the humanitarian crises in such countries as Palestine and Yemen, the US helped to do evil as an accomplice. Judging from its motivation, in the context of the strategic shrinking of US-Middle East policies, the US values-based diplomacy focusing on human rights and democracy aims to use human rights as a tool to maintain its control over the Middle East, and to politicize and instrumentalize human rights issues for its interests, rather than for real concerns about the human rights situations in the Middle East. Meanwhile, rising racism and deteriorating human rights at home have made the US self-claimed "human rights flag-bearer" lose its credibility, and its identities as human rights "moralist" and "lecturer" have been extensively questioned. The fig leaf of the US as human rights defender has been torn down and its true self as a human rights abuser has been disclosed.

Human rights disaster maker

In observing US human rights diplomacy in the Middle East, one needs to pay attention to what it has done in the Middle East instead of being deceived by its blandishments of freedom, democracy, and empowerment. After the September 11 attacks, the US has launched the Greater Middle East Initiative to use Western values, including freedom, democracy, and human rights, to reform the Middle East and eliminate the roots of terrorism. However, not only the US Middle East strategy targeted a wrong goal, but also there were theoretical paradoxes. The so-called Greater Middle East Initiative began with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in countless deaths in the two countries. The warfare that has continued almost 20 years has killed nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians and 70,000 Afghan soldiers, forced 2.7 million Afghans to leave their country, and made 4 million Afghans homeless, while the total population is less than 36 million. At the tense moment when the Afghan government remains instable, the US is irresponsibly withdrawing its troops to shirk responsibilities, which will definitely lead to more serious humanitarian disasters.

The war that the US launched on Iraq bypassing the UN with its fictitious excuse has made Iraq the hardest-hit area of global human rights and the people are living in the absence of basic safety. Till the US withdrawal in 2011, more than 100,000 Iraqis had lost their lives, 2.8 million were forced to leave their country, and 2 million became homeless. This war in the name of anti-terrorism eventually has made Iraq one of the most insecure countries in the world and reduced Iraq to a new sink of violent extremism, where suicide bomb attacks frequently occurred. Large territories were once controlled by the extremist organization ISIS, and warfare and terrorist attacks resulted in vast deaths of civilians. During the Iraq war, the human rights crimes that the US committed were too numerous to record. The release of numerous photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib has resulted in the collapse of the US' image as a benign force promoting democracy and human rights in Iraq.

The US-led war on terror came with reckless human rights abuses. The US set up a prison in Guantanamo, and held a great number of people in custody there, including many innocent civilians who had nothing to do with terrorism, in disregard of judicial due process, ignoring strong opposition from the international community. The US, ignoring basic human rights, stalked and monitored Muslims in globally, even launched the "Muslim ban" against the entire Muslim community to deprive them of the freedom to travel. In anti-terrorism activities, mistakes in arrests and killings of innocent civilians were common.

The US implemented extremely strict sanctions against Middle East countries such as Iran, which banned necessities such as food and medicine, even anti-pandemic resources and vaccines to save lives are subject to embargo. The US blames those countries for violating human rights, but it is implementing sanctions that result in wider and more serious human rights disasters.

“Double standard” reveals hypocrisy

The US treats human rights issues in the Middle East and implements human rights standards selectively. It exaggerates the opponents' human rights issues strictly, even creates something out of nothing, but tolerates, even supports, allies' human rights abuses. The "double standard" of the US on human rights issues in the Middle East has fully exposed the hypocrisy of its human rights diplomacy.

The US has long favored Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and connived Israel to violate the basic human rights of the Palestinians. Israel implemented full block and sanctions in Gaza, Palestine, making it the largest "outdoor prison" in the world and the human rights conditions are miserable there. In several Gaza conflicts, thousands of Palestinians died and tens of thousands lost their homes. In recent conflicts, more than 230 Palestinians died and more than 1,000 were injured. With the US obstructing in every possible way, the UN Security Council even could not make any statement on this conflict. Israel has violated international law to construct settlements and annex Palestinian territories, which have resulted in many Palestinians losing their homes and land. The US has consistently been partial to Israeli illegal settlements and vetoed resolutions condemning Israeli settlement construction in the UN Security Council more than 30 times, the Trump administration has even publicly declared those settlements legal.

The Yemeni civil war has continued for more than six years, which has led to the most serious humanitarian cisis in the world and more than 200,000 deaths. Of the population of more than 27 million people, 24 million are barely surviving on humanitarian aid, 16 million are facing the severe threat of famine, and more than half of the infants there are suffering malnutrition. The US ignored the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, continued to sell weapons to relative countries and became a conspirator of the humanitarian crisis.

Human rights: a tool for the US to dominate the Middle East

An important reason behind the unsuccessful US human rights diplomacy in the Middle East is that the US is never really concerned about the human rights situation in the Middle East, it is only for serving the US-Middle East strategy. In the name of protecting human rights, human rights have been politicized and instrumentalized. US human rights diplomacy in the Middle East has shown a non-linear trajectory, which is closely linked to the Middle East policies of different partisan administrations, not based on consistent human rights standards, and does not adapt to the changes in the human rights conditions there. As the US withdraws militarily from the Middle East, human rights diplomacy has become a new handle serving US attempts to maintain its influence through values-based diplomacy as its direct influence decreases. Even a same administration may adopt different, even opposite, policies towards similar human rights issues in the area, which fully demonstrates the instrumentality of the US human rights diplomacy. Therefore, the US can never improve the human rights situation in the Middle East as it is only concerned about its own interests.

Another misunderstanding of US human rights diplomacy in the Middle East is overlooking the rights to subsistence and development, and never regarding development as a way to address human rights issues. Middle East countries have long ranked at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index ranking and many have not solved the most basic needs yet. The root cause of human rights issues in the Middle East is lagging development, the fundamental way out of is to develop the economy and improve the people's livelihoods. The US does not concern itself with the Middle East's development, which is reflected in its increasingly shrinking development aid, promised aid never coming true, and never developing any decent infrastructure or project for public well-being. Such human rights diplomacy contributes little to the living standards and welfare in the Middle East.

US human rights diplomacy is based on the dangerous mindset that sees itself as the "beacon" and "highland" of human rights and the Middle East as an "uncivilized depression" of human rights, which needs the US to enlighten and civilize. Such a condescending attitude with moral superiority implies prejudice and discrimination to other cultures and will definitely be disgusted and refused by related countries. Meanwhile, it ignores the historical progress of human rights development. Human rights are closely related to the level of socio-economic development.

Recently, disasters have frequently occurred in the Middle East, people have been suffering, and the US has to bear the blame for the poor human rights conditions there. After repeated failures, the US reintroduced human rights diplomacy in the Middle East to instrumentalize human rights and maintain its domination in the Middle East. However, the infamous US human rights records in the Middle East and its double standard towards human rights have fully revealed its insincerity and decided its failure like previous US attempts.

Contributed by Ding Long, Professor of The Middle East Studies Institute (MESI) of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU)

Translated by Fei Jinglun

Editor: Zhang Zhou
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