They are not a priority of President Obama, who, in his first nine months on the job, dissed both the Iranian revolutionaries and the Dalai Lama. I understand the rationale, but, as Leon Wieseltier writes in the upcoming New Republic, compromise isn’t always the answer.
“The demotion of human rights by the common-ground presidency is absolutely incomprehensible. The common ground is not always the high ground. When it is without end, moreover, the search for common ground is bad for bargaining. It informs the other side that what you most desire is the deal — that you will never acknowledge the finality of the difference, and never be satisfied with the integrity of opposition. There is a reason that ‘uncompromising’ is a term of approbation.”
