President Biden has made it his mission to wage what he memorably calls “the battle between democracy and autocracy.” But what if those he says are undermining democracy are friends?
In the case of Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed new obstacles to an independent judiciary through parliament on Monday, Biden has chosen to speak out. The mood in Jerusalem, he declared, was “unfortunate”, the fourth time in a week that he chastised Mr. Netanyahu for his drive to increase his own power.
But the president’s fight for democracy can be situational when it comes to America’s allies. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has led a wave of Hindu nationalist violence and suppression of dissent, was celebrated at the White House with a state dinner and little public criticism. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia was rewarded with a visit and a presidential punch despite his murderous rule.
“Consistency is a challenge for most governments when it comes to democracy and human rights issues around the world, and this administration is no exception,” said David J. Kramer, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor under President George W. Bush. “It is easier to speak out when our enemies and competitors are guilty of authoritarian abuses,” he added. “It’s harder when it comes to friends and allies.”
The framework between democracy and autocracy has been central to Mr. Biden’s vision of his presidency from the start, fueled by the battle against his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump, who attempted to overturn an election to stay in power after being voted out of office. Mr Biden has also defined the central foreign policy challenge of his tenure – defeating the Russian invasion of Ukraine – as part of that overall cause.
It is, after all, a politically attractive construct – right and wrong, good guys versus bad guys. But it’s one that predictably gets more complicated in the Situation Room than it appears onstage during a stilted speech. Given other US interests, such as military bases or intelligence cooperation or economic entanglements, it can be difficult to decide when to speak out strongly for democracy.
Even some senior officials around Biden are personally uncomfortable with the duality of his black-and-white approach, noting that some American friends have the rule of law without being particularly free (Singapore springs to mind), while others are even less committed to Western notions of human rights but are still helpful allies (the United Arab Emirates, for example).
Mr Biden has found it necessary to exercise restraint with countries that are undeniably autocratic. While he recently called China’s President Xi Jinping a “dictator” during a political fundraiser, he said little specifically about Beijing’s brutal repression of the Uyghur minority or crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong.
That becomes even more difficult when it comes to American allies. Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last year identified 27 countries that had fallen back on democracy since 2005, including friends like Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, India, the Philippines, Poland, Tanzania, Thailand and Turkey.
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pushed through legislation to limit the power and autonomy of the National Electoral Institute in what critics called an attempt to restore the one-party system. Mr López Obrador said he was just trying to make the election more efficient, but last month Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down a key element of his plan.
Mr Biden has not been particularly vocal about democracy in any of those countries. Indeed, he has welcomed the President of the Philippines to the White House and has visited Poland twice and Mexico once, expressing his support for the sale of F-16 fighters to Turkey. The reasons are not mysterious – he needs the Philippines to contain China, Poland to help Russia rise up, Mexico to halt illegal immigration and Turkey to allow Sweden to join NATO.
Of course, it is much more complicated to force other countries into democratic regression, because another backslider on the Carnegie list is the United States itself. When Mr. Biden talks about democracy elsewhere, he frequently admits that America is still operating on its own.
Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, a nongovernmental organization that promotes democracy, said Mr. Biden “should be given some credit for his willingness to exercise American leadership” on the issue, but “his rhetoric should be backed up with concrete actions” and funding.
“He should also be more balanced in the standards to which he holds other countries, especially US allies,” added Mr. Abramowitz. “Good friends should be able to tell each other the truth, but President Biden basically gave Prime Minister Modi a pass on the Indian democratic backslide, at least publicly, while rightly berating Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
Other presidents have struggled with the conflict between the ideals they espoused and the realities they faced, from Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In his second inaugural address, Mr. Bush committed to “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” and vowed to make relations with “every ruler and every nation” contingent on liberty, a standard he never more fully met than his predecessors.
Mr Biden has sponsored two “democracy summits” and has announced a third will be held in South Korea. In his State of the Union address this year, he stated that since taking office “democracies have gotten stronger, not weaker,” while “autocracies have gotten weaker, not stronger.”
Yet, after two and a half years in office, Mr. Biden has no Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy. His first choice, Sarah Margon, withdrew after Republican opposition stemming from earlier tweets about Israel.
Mr. Biden’s willingness to reject Mr. Netanyahu’s legal plan while remaining less vocal on issues in places like India underscores the role Israel plays in US politics. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has long been a lightning rod for criticism, and support for the country has become an increasingly partisan issue in Washington.
With a long track record for Israel, Mr Biden claims he has the status to offer friendly advice. In the past week alone, Mr. Netanyahu to pressure him to seek a compromise and has made three public statements urging him to build a broader consensus before moving forward. “It is unfortunate that the vote took place today with the narrowest possible majority,” a statement from the White House said Monday.
With Mr. Netanyahu challenging him, the question is whether Mr. Biden will go beyond jaws. The United States provides billions of dollars a year in security aid to Israel, but it seems unlikely that Biden will use more than pleas to pressure Netanyahu to withdraw.
“So far, Biden’s pressure has been rhetorical only, and that’s not only insufficient to challenge Netanyahu’s growing authoritarianism, it also shows how out of sync Biden is with his own voter base,” said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and a longtime critic of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians.
The president’s aides said his words were important. “I wouldn’t say it’s just rhetoric,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. “When the president speaks, he sends a message.”
To Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters, the president’s outrage at Israel’s democratic erosion feels selective. First, they argue that the Prime Minister’s plan to curtail the authority of the courts is not anti-democratic, but instead puts more responsibility in the hands of elected leaders.
In addition, Mr Biden has often brought forward legislation on “the thinnest possible majority”. Vice President Kamala Harris just tied the record for most decisive Senate votes in U.S. history.
“There is no question that Israel is being treated differently,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based nonpartisan organization focused on advancing the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership.
He noted that in France President Emmanuel Macron has trampled in parliament to pass unpopular pension changes without the broad consensus that Biden pushed for, leading to strikes, street demonstrations and sporadic violent protests. “Yet you will search in vain for even a single word from President Biden of genuine criticism of his French counterpart’s handling of these purely internal French affairs,” said Mr. Hannah.
Richard Fontaine, CEO of Center for a New American Security, said the US approach to promoting democracy abroad “has always been a model of inconsistency”. Mr Biden is right that the world is currently facing a battle between democracy and autocracy and that the United States should come first, he said, but he needs to weigh this against other objectives.
“The inconsistency and whataboutism are inevitable by-products of a foreign policy that seeks to change the domestic situations of other countries,” he said. “That’s no reason to give up efforts to support democracy abroad — just to understand that it’s not an easy task.”
