Why Democrats Betray Democracies

Much of the anger surrounding President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to abstain on UN Security Council Resolution 2234 revolved around the fact that, apparently out of personal pique at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Obama administration had decided to throw Israel—the Middle East’s most democratic and liberal state—under the bus.

Israel, of course, isn’t alone. In the waning days of the 2008 presidential campaign, Russia invaded Georgia, the only democratic country in the Caucasus and a country which had also virtually eradicated endemic corruption. Senator John McCain’s statement addressed the crisis with moral clarity, while then-Senator Barack Obama’s remarks calling for both “Georgia and Russia to show restraint” were diplomatic pabulum that obscured the aggressor and victim.

Neither the hostility toward Israel nor the cavalier attitude toward Georgia comes close to being the most egregious example of senior U.S. officials confusing betrayal of democracy with sophisticated diplomacy. According to Taiwanese news sources citing Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to support the idea of the United States betraying Taiwan to China in exchange for Beijing writing off American debt. According to Taiwan News:

According to an alleged e-mail by Hillary Clinton published by WikiLeaks, the former United States Secretary of State was willing to discuss a New York Times editorial calling on Washington to ditch Taiwan in return for China writing off debt. Her adviser Jake Sullivan passed on the editorial to Clinton, and she replied, “I saw it and thought it was so clever. Let’s discuss,” according to WikiLeaks. The editorial, titled “To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan” … was written by Paul Kane, a former international security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. In the piece, the author says President Barack Obama “should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.” The proposal would benefit the U.S. in that it would cut its debt, improve its economy, and keep it out of a potential war with China over Taiwan, Kane wrote.

While the leaked documents do not give the outcome of any discussion that occurred between Clinton and Sullivan, the very notion that Clinton would consider betraying a country of 23 million to a one-party, communist regime is worth considering. To even float a trial balloon could have devastating consequences. When Secretary of State Dean Acheson defined America’s “defense perimeters” in Asia on January 12, 1950, he omitted Korea. North Korean leader Kim Il-sung interpreted that speech to mean the United States would not defend South Korea: More than 36,000 Americans died and nearly three times that number were wounded. Nor would it project American strength if the United States were to choose to betray allies rather than rein in spending. The icing on the cake, of course, was the subsequent self-congratulations about the ‘bold move’ for Clinton’s successor John Kerry to visit Cuba, all the while continuing to avoid Taiwan.

During the Cold War, liberals and progressives castigated the U.S. government for overthrowing supposedly socialist regimes in Chile, Guatemala, and elsewhere. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State likewise withdrew formal diplomatic recognition from Taiwan (which at the time had yet to solidify its democracy). Those arguments, however, lose all merit when–absent the straight jacket of Cold War realism–Democrats repeatedly betray or even consider betraying democracies for spurious reasons.