Thirty years ago, in November 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick wrote her famous essay Dictatorships & Double Standards, in which she wrote about how President Carter’s policy of undermining friendly dictators while appeasing hostile ones was catastrophic to US interests throughout the world.
Stephen Hayes sees the echoes of Carter’s folly in the Obama administration today:
At least four foreign journalists were detained during the [November 4 Iranian] protests, and members of government-backed militias appeared in riot gear beating protesters with heavy clubs and arresting others.
Back at the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly prepared to open his daily briefing with an unusually harsh condemnation. The United States “deplores” the “unprecedented” actions of an unelected leadership that “have undermined any opportunity for progress toward reengagement and constructive dialogue.”
These would have been the strongest words issued by the Obama administration about the Iranian protests if they had been about the Iranian regime. But they were actually about Fiji. Kelly said absolutely nothing about Iran.
Beyond Fiji, Hayes could have cited Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, or Honduras as friendly governments denounced by the State Department. We are branching out, though, because those aren’t even dictatorships.
(Via Power Line.)
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