Sharansky: When did America forget that it’s America?

| April 19, 2015

Natan Sharansky, a former political prisoner of the old Soviet Union, writes in the Washington Post, “When did America forget that it’s America?” in regards to the way that the United States acted towards the Soviet Union during the latter years of the Cold War that resulted in the ultimate collapse of the Communist Empire. Sharansky compares that to the current administration’s negotiations with Iran.

Even Jimmy Carter, with all of his faults, left human rights abuses in the Soviet Union on the table for negotiations. Sharansky himself benefited from the pressure the United States government put on the Soviet Union when he was released from the gulags, in February 1986, the first political prisoner to be released by the hand of Mikhail Gorbachev in the face of Ronald Reagan’s resolve on the issue. He had been imprisoned since 1977 when he was arrested for high treason – his crime was that he had passed along a list of 1300 refuseniks to the Western media.

Sharansky writes in the Post;

When American negotiations with the Soviets reached the issue of trade, and in particular the lifting of sanctions and the conferring of most-favored-nation status on the Soviet Union, the Senate, led by Democrat Henry Jackson, insisted on linking economic normalization to Moscow’s allowing freedom of emigration. By the next year, when the Helsinki agreement was signed, the White House had joined Congress in making the Soviets’ treatment of dissidents a central issue in nearly every negotiation.

Iran’s dismal human rights record, by contrast, has gone entirely unmentioned in the recent negotiations. Sadly, America’s reticence is familiar: In 2009, in response to the democratic uprisings that mobilized so many Iranian citizens, President Obama declared that engaging the theocratic regime would take priority over changing it.

Of course, that’s just one aspect of the failures of this administration in the Middle Eastern region, but probably the most dangerous to people living in the Middle East as well as the rest of the world – Iran’s clients, Hezbollah and the Houthis draw more of the countries into the circle of Iran’s control.

The John Kerry-Barack Obama State Department is only too anxious to sign something, anything with the Iranians, they’ve given away the store in the process.

Back to Sharansky;

Imagine what would have happened if instead, after completing a round of negotiations over disarmament, the Soviet Union had declared that its right to expand communism across the continent was not up for discussion. This would have spelled the end of the talks. Yet today, Iran feels no need to tone down its rhetoric calling for the death of America and wiping Israel off the map.

Because the politics of the agreements are more important than the contents. It’s better to have something, anything signed than nothing, no matter how poorly that something, anything serves any party in the agreement.

The United States used to be the great defender of international human rights, creditable to Jimmy Carter in the modern era, but this administration has abandoned that tenet in favor of political expediency.

You should stay out of the comments of the article since the antisemitism directed at Sharansky in particular and Israel, in general, is rampant. Apparently, it’s all the Jews fault that Iran wants to wipe them out. So, the propaganda from Tehran is still working the magic that the propaganda from Moscow on the same pointy-headed apologists that caused this mess.

Category: Foreign Policy

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Hondo

When, Mr. Sharansky? I’d put the date at November 4, 2008.

Ex-PH2

I’d put it earlier, starting with Slick Willie.

CLAW131

22 Nov 63.

Richard

Concur.

68W58

The Frankfurt School douchetools started coming to the U.S. in the 1930s-that was when the infection took hold in earnest.

Thunderstixx

Woodrow Wilson started this liberal mess.
He was a horrible president and even worse human being…

OldSoldier54

Concur.

OldSoldier54

Mr. Sharansky understood wrt the Soviet Union, just just as Pastor Saeed Abedini, his wife Nagmeh, and his two children Rebecca and Jacob understand about Iran.

It seems that those who have seen evil up close and personal, always have a much clearer understanding of the reality versus the fevered imaginings of ivory tower crowd.

NR Pax

What is sad is that people like that get dismissed as “ignorant,” “backwards,” or “bigoted” because they don’t see just how wonderful things are in countries like that.

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Grimmy

I figure the degrade from a rather different point than most.

Imo, it was Teddy Roosevelt. His grabbing up land for federal parks which were, regardless of the spin at the time, meant for use as hunting grounds for the monied elite (remember travel at that time was horrendously expensive, difficult and time consuming so only the very rich could afford to “vacation”) like the old aristocrat hunting preserves in Europe. And, his jumping into the colonial game also in mimic of European powers.

Kimberley West

It makes not a difference from where this policy started. Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt. Americans tend to be historically illiterate. We forget or are in a form of denial, there are wolves in sheep clothing patrolling the world looking to devour the sheep. That evil is real. That some who claim humanity are the worst of our nightmares rolled into perfumed princes, bent on hypnotizing us. There are people who would behead them, rape, sodomize, starve, torture them given the right opportunity or oppress them, like Saudi Arabia. No, we are told to keep shopping, tending to our children’s soccer games, go on about life. The U.S. was never placed on a “war footing” within the citizenry. War and evil have become distant things of fairy tales. The gooberment has this under control, while the wolves are sniffing at our doorsteps. He asks a great question and it deserves an answer.

OldSoldier54

Amen.

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