ISOLATIONISM PROCEEDS FROM THE ASSUMPTION THAT SOULS DON'T MATTER:

Obama’s Moral-Leadership Balloon Crashes: Realpolitik and misplaced faith in diplomacy keeps trumping human rights. (Mona Charen, 10/20/09, National Review)

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians endured tear gas, bullets, arrests, and torture in an attempt to topple one of the most vicious and dangerous regimes in the world. Yet day after day, President Obama, moral beacon to the world, dismissed and even denigrated them. He was not going to allow a bunch of democrats to interfere with his meticulously planned overture of friendship toward the mullahs. His condemnation of the violence and brutality of the regime was so tepid, tardy, and grudging that it amounted to tacit support for the government. Another blow to human rights and morality.

The people of Honduras, who have struggled painfully to achieve a successful democracy, threw off a would-be dictator who threatened to plunge the nation back to autocracy. Rather than help to solidify Honduras’s devotion to its constitution, Obama (together with those well-known human rights avatars Hugo Chávez and the Castro brothers) sided with Manuel Zelaya and imposed sanctions on the legitimate government. Which side better represents human rights and morality?

But surely on a matter as grave as mass murder, President Obama will not permit realpolitik or misplaced faith in diplomacy to trump human rights? Who can forget Senator Obama’s eloquent condemnation of the Bush administration for negotiating with the Sudanese regime? “I am deeply concerned,” candidate Obama intoned, “by reports that the Bush administration is negotiating a normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan that would include removing it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. . . . This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments. . . . Before we improve our relationship with the government of Sudan, conditions must improve for the Sudanese people. We cannot stand down — we must continue to stand up for peace and human rights.” Why did the senator feel so strongly about it? Because “the United States has a moral obligation, anytime you see humanitarian catastrophes. . . . And when you see a genocide, whether it’s in Rwanda, or Bosnia, or in Darfur, that’s a stain on all of us; that’s a stain on our souls.”

How are our souls looking today?