United States foreign policy’s indifference to human rights abuses in Islamic states reflects the conservative view of human rights as subordinate to other foreign policy concerns by successive White House administrations. Evidently, successive White House regimes demonstrate a preference for military and trade cooperation with Islamic states over furtherance of religion inspired human rights. Staggering reports of human rights abuses, especially in the Middle Eastern Islamic states do not affect economic and military support and weapon sale to Islamic states.
President Bush war on terror characteristically demonstrates a secularist approach in United States foreign policy. Evidently, although Islamist terrorists were solely the masterminds of the deadly 9/11 terrorist attack that triggered Bush’s war on terror, the Bush administration tactically and wisely eluded bashing Islam in its war on terrorism. US Attorney General John Ashcroft for instance, in his press address on February 19th, 2002 observed that the conflict between Islamist terrorists and the US was not precipitated by the Islamic religion. Instead, Attorney General Ashcroft identified terrorism as exacerbated by a conflict between people who believed in free will versus the terrorists who sought to dictate their religious choices on Americans. Ashcroft further cited terrorism as rooted in the antagonism between imposition and inspiration. According to Ashcroft, Islamist terrorism pitted terrorist’s destructive and chaotic means against peaceful means as well as a war between good and evil. However, President Bush observed that God supported either of the two adversarial groups.
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US foreign policy’s selective indifference to Islam absolutism in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) states is also evident in Clinton’s administration targeted war against terrorism in MENA states with no focus on human rights abuses in the states. Evidently, US administration turned a blind eye to the two decades, civil war in Sudan that claimed the lives of over 100,000 people from scorched earth policies of Bashir’s administration in 1998 1 . Congressional interventions to the Sudan civil war merely involved official recognition of the conflict as a genocide after the Khartoum administration killed over two million African traditional believers and Christians in Sudan’s central and southern region. A forcible foreign policy intervention by the Clinton administration involving the 1998 cruise missile attack on Khartoum, severing of diplomatic relations and economic sanctions selectively targeted terrorism in the country with no focus on the ongoing genocide and other human rights abuses by the state. By the end of 1999, Clinton administration ultimately lifted some of the trade sanctions imposed on Sudan’s import such as gum Arabic. The government also approved Americans multinationals investment in Sudan such as China Petroleum. The Lifting of the trade and economic sanctions by Clinton’s administration, signaled a reversal of US foreign policy towards Sudan as envisaged in the Sudan Peace Act. A change of heart by Clinton’s administration demonstrates US preference for the incremental influence of human rights reforms in MENA nations as opposed to isolation or coercion of human rights observance by the states.
United States foreign policy reflects a hybrid of a laicism and Judeo-Christian tradition inspiration. On one hand, a laicism tradition informs US indifference to its Christian majority sentiments on its government’s policies objectives. Laicism refers to a subcategory of a secular political system characterized by exclusion of ecclesiastical influence and control in policy decisions 2 . In particular, laicism political system expels religion from politics. In the US, a laicism tradition is reflected in the White Administration’s effort to influence rather than coerce Muslim-majority states to modernize by adopting the Western secularist state model as successfully realized in Turkey 3 . US laicism approach is evident in its tolerance to Muslim states with the worst human right record such as Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, a Judeo-Christian foreign policy approach reflects in US historical hostility to Muslim-majority states such as Iran 4 . US foreign policy is therefore not completely devoid of religious inspiration. Instead, White House administration foreign policy reflects the basic view on politics and religion that safeguards Americans military and trade interests.
Bibliography
Department of Justice. #02-19-02: Prepared Remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft National Religious Broadcasters Convention Nashville, Tennessee. February 19, 2002. Accessed June 10, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/021902religiousbroadcasters.htm.
Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. "The International Politics of Secularism: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 2 (2004): 115-38.
Jahn, Egbert. "The Dispute Over the Veil. The Conflict Between Laicism (The Separation of State and Religion) and Religious Tolerance." German Domestic and Foreign Policy , 2015, 43-58.
Reeves, Eric. "Failure to Prevent Genocide in Sudan and the Consequences of Impunity: Darfur as Precedent for Abyei, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile." Genocide Studies International 8, no. 1 (2014): 58-74.
Steinvorth, Ulrich. "Secularization Is a Western Affair." Secularization , 2017, 173-84.
1 Reeves, Eric. "Failure to Prevent Genocide in Sudan and the Consequences of Impunity: Darfur as Precedent for Abyei, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile." Genocide Studies International 8, no. 1 (2014): pp. 58.
2 Jahn, Egbert. "The Dispute Over the Veil. The Conflict Between Laicism (The Separation of State and Religion) and Religious Tolerance." German Domestic and Foreign Policy , 2015, pp. 43
3 Steinvorth, Ulrich. "Secularization Is a Western Affair." Secularization , 2017, pp. 173
4 Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. "The International Politics of Secularism: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran." Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 2 (2004): pp. 115
