// interview //
May 18, 2015 (original post 04/02/2015)
Discussing U.S. Foreign Policy
with Jay Lefkowitz
In late February, The Current’s Editor in Chief Joshua Fattal and Staff Writer Daniella Greenbaum sat down for an interview with Jay Lefkowitz, a senior advisor to former President George W. Bush who held both domestic and foreign policy positions. A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, Mr. Lefkowitz served as President Bush’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, and has been named by the National Law Journal one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. The Current spoke with Mr. Lefkowitz about North Korea, Iran, ISIS, and his experience at Columbia, in an effort to take a fresh look at some of the issues making headlines today.
May 18, 2015 (original post 04/02/2015)
Discussing U.S. Foreign Policy
with Jay Lefkowitz
In late February, The Current’s Editor in Chief Joshua Fattal and Staff Writer Daniella Greenbaum sat down for an interview with Jay Lefkowitz, a senior advisor to former President George W. Bush who held both domestic and foreign policy positions. A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, Mr. Lefkowitz served as President Bush’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, and has been named by the National Law Journal one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. The Current spoke with Mr. Lefkowitz about North Korea, Iran, ISIS, and his experience at Columbia, in an effort to take a fresh look at some of the issues making headlines today.
CURRENT: We would like to start by discussing a central element of George W. Bush’s presidency: democracy promotion in the Middle East and around the world. Your role in the Bush administration made you one of the public faces of this agenda; what do you think democracy promotion will look like in the post-Obama era?
Lefkowitz: Well, we’re not in the post-Obama era yet, alas. But I think what we’ve learned is that promoting democracy as an end in and of itself is pretty challenging because democracy doesn’t necessarily work for everyone in the same way. I think promoting free markets as an avenue towards bringing about democracy might in some instances be a more productive pathway, because free markets actually appeal more naturally to everyone and they tend to be one of the most effective means of propelling the spirit of democracy – enlightened self-interest. Free markets promote liberty; they promote equality of opportunity in the most effective way; and then unleash the spirit of human ingenuity and productivity. But whether the ultimate form of government in another country is going to be a U.S. style democracy, or something different should not be the ultimate objective. I mean, we’ve got a lot of democracies around the world that are functioning pretty well and they don’t look very much like the United States.
CURRENT: Do you see any potential ethical issues or ethical complications with democracy promotion? At what point does it become inappropriate or ethically problematic to dictate to another country how they should govern?
Lefkowitz: Well I don’t think we should be dictating to other countries how they should govern at all. I think we have to respect national sovereignty – except when someone else’s sovereign actions impinge on our own security or significantly impinge on the security of allies. But basically, when countries are living in peace with one another I don’t think it’s really our business what form of government another nation has.
CURRENT: Did you see The Interview?
Lefkowitz: No I have not seen The Interview. Somehow, a comedy about the North Korean regime just didn’t appeal to me.
CURRENT: Let’s talk about North Korea anyway. You’ve obviously been a huge part of the campaign to promote human rights in North Korea. What parts of the work you’ve done have been successful over the long term?
Lefkowitz: Well, I think there is a real recognition now – really around the world – that human rights violations are a serious issue in North Korea. And when I got involved doing this work in 2005, basically no one – certainly very few people – were aware of the dimension of the human rights catastrophe in North Korea. Now, the regime’s depredations are well known. There’s also been some real movement on the part of a lot of the European countries, particularly in the United Nations to take some action – obviously within the limits of what the UN does.
CURRENT: How did the administration juggle concern for North Korea’s nuclear program, on the one hand, and its human rights abuses, on the other?
Lefkowitz: The fundamental focus of our North Korea policy was strategic and national security and it focused on the nuclear issue, and the dominant feature of our policy, at the time, was focused on the six party talks [a series of multilateral negotiations held intermittently since 2003 for the purpose of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program]. I was a strong proponent, and in many respects really a lone voice, of folding human rights issues into that dialogue, to create a linkage, much as we did during the Cold War with the Soviet Union – a linkage among military, economic and human rights issues. It seemed to me that in a dialogue just focused on nuclear issues we were never really going to succeed. And, in fact, to this day I think we are losing that race, not winning that race. I still think had we incorporated human rights in the dialogue, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, we would have had a little more latitude and there would have been different leverage points—we could have used the system of carrots and sticks much more effectively, than in the binary or zero sum dialogue focused just on the nuclear issue.
CURRENT: The Obama administration has been faced with a similar issue regarding Iran. What are your thoughts on the way Obama has dealt with the human rights aspect of Iran, and do you think a dual track is being pursued?
Lefkowitz: Human rights promotion would have been, I think, a very effective lever to have incorporated into our Iran strategy. We should have been doing much more to promote human rights issues through the Internet, and as part of our diplomacy. Because I think the citizens of Iran are not being well-served by their own leadership right now, and even though the Iranian population is more than a generation removed from pre-Ayatollah Iran, the natural sympathies of many Iranians are not nearly as anti-Western as their leadership is. Again, I think that a great deal of the problems we are living with now regarding Iran are a result of what we’ve experienced over the last six or seven years with the United States withdrawing more and more from exerting its influence and power around the world. It started with the president’s Cairo speech, and the one thing you can say is that the president has been consistent in this area; he is uncomfortable with the projection of American power and American influence. And when America doesn’t project its power and its influence, what happens is very predictable. Bullies and thugs step in and try to fill the vacuum. But unlike in a schoolyard, some of the bullies and thugs around the world have access to very serious weapons and armies.
CURRENT: What’s your opinion on the impact of sanctions on Iran?
Lefkowitz: Sanctions have had a real impact in Iran. In fact, they have been more effective than many people would have expected, but that is because we were able to actually develop a true international coalition behind the sanctions. For sanctions to have a real impact, you have to develop a true international coalition. I don’t know that sanctions were ever going to be enough to deal fully with the Iranian threat, but they seem to have been working. So it’s somewhat inexplicable why the President is rushing to try to do a deal, and is so afraid of continuing sanctions. In contrast to Iran, on the other side of that continent, you can look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine, and that might be a place where sanctions would not be nearly as helpful. First, there isn’t anything close to an international coalition for sanctions with respect to Russia. And second, in that situation, one has to take a step back and actually understand a little bit more about Russia’s motivation and Russia’s own history because the situation has more shades of gray than Iran.
CURRENT: Since you brought up Ukraine, let’s tackle that region. There has been a lot of talk about the violations of international law that have been going on in the Ukraine crisis but there hasn’t been a focus at all on the human rights issues, the more human side of the issue. What role do you think human rights concerns will ultimately play in the United States decision to get more or less involved?
Lefkowitz: In terms of what role human rights will play in the U.S. policy regarding the Ukraine, I don’t think it will play much of a role. I don’t think this administration cares very much about human rights violations around the world. We’ve heard almost no comment about all of the human rights violations in China, and I don’t expect to hear much of anything about human rights violations in the Ukraine. Ironically, it seems that the only place one hears about human rights violations anymore is Israel, despite the fact that whatever its flaws, Israel’s human rights record is far more impressive than any of its neighbors. I think there are significant issues, as well as international law issues, in terms of Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine, but part of the overall outrage that we hear in the United States about this comes from a mindset that territorial borders are sacrosanct. And I think that we have to at least recognize that from the perspective of Russians, the Ukrainian independence is only 21 years old and Russian history is very, very long. That’s something we should be cognizant of as we formulate policies. Russia is an important player on the global stage, and as Henry Kissinger commented a few weeks ago, Putin may be acting a little bit like Peter the Great, but he is still a far cry from Stalin.
CURRENT: What do you think of Obama’s strategy in dealing with ISIS?
Lefkowitz: Unlike dealing with a sovereign state with more than 50 million people and significant territory of strategic significance, ISIS is basically a collection of terrorists or at most, at least for now, a wannabe “terrorist state.” When they kidnap Americans, and behead Americans, there should be swift and very serious retaliation. So while ISIS clearly does not present the kind of strategic threat right now that a nuclear Iran would present, we should be very wary of the consequences of projecting any weakness with respect to ISIS.
CURRENT: Would you support the use of ground troops in a sizable way?
Lefkowitz: One of the President’s top foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, recently acknowledged that ground troops would be necessary against ISIS, but that they wouldn’t be U.S. troops. That’s precisely the kind of mixed messages we are sending. Right now ISIS is a serious problem and if, as the administration recognizes, the U.S. should confront it, then we should not shy away from using ground troops or just rely on foreign troops – especially now when a relatively small number of ground troops should be sufficient. If we let ISIS fester and grow, it will surely become a much larger problem.
CURRENT: Did the Bush’s administration’s actions in Iraq lead to the vacuum that lead to ISIS? If more military intervention in that region just leads to more violence, are we approaching the issue intelligently?
Lefkowitz: I think the combination of the Obama-led American withdrawal from Iraq with his vacillation in Syria is what really created the vacuum that gave rise to ISIS. And it has also led to Iran largely supplanting the U.S. as the dominant power in Iraq – which is the really dangerous byproduct of our 2011 withdrawal from Iraq. When I was a student at Columbia, I took a class with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. I remember a lecture he gave about the Iran-Iraq war, which was going on at the time. Brzezinski said that the American strategy in those days was basically to support whichever side was losing, either directly or through surrogates. There is a parallel now in the struggle between Sunnis and the Shias and the threat that each poses to U.S. interests. So maybe it’s in our national interest for neither side to prevail decisively.
CURRENT: Bringing the conversation into our own government: America is very much not a country of dynasties, but we are faced with a potential Bush-Clinton race. What does that mean for our identity as a country?
Lefkowitz: We were only six presidents into our republic before we had our first dynasty, so its not so foreign. I think that if we end up with a Jeb Bush—Hillary Clinton race, it would actually be a very good race. I think you would end up having, in my view, the most sensible and responsible representatives from each of the major political parties. I think that would be a good thing for this country. And I think it would be a healthy and a vigorous debate.
CURRENT: Zooming back in a little, and bringing the focus more locally — over the last couple years we’ve seen a really strong showing of leftist activity on campus and leftist ideology being the only acceptable ideology, and we are wondering what the experience on campus was like when you were a student and what you make of the culture at Columbia today.
Lefkowitz: Today, you may have a very strong leftist movement on campus, but you also have conservative outlets. We didn’t have anything like that when I was a college student. The major issue of the day was the divestment movement from South Africa and everywhere from John Jay up to the steps of Hamilton there were shanties, and for several months people lived outside in these shanties and there were protests everyday about the divestment funds in South Africa. When I was at Columbia, there were very few visible outlets for conservatives. One area where there are similarities between our experiences relates to Israel. I went to college before the Intifada, but there were certainly anti-Israel protests regarding the building of settlements. But they were not nearly as well-attended as they are today, and the anti-Israel protests were not fused with anti-Semitism as they are today. In recent years, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have merged in a particularly poisonous way. But, as you know, just as you have your Rashid Khalidi, we had our Edward Said. So there are a lot of parallels between your experience and my experience in the 1980s. As for the overall Zeitgeist, the liberal perspective has been the dominant perspective on most college campuses and certainly Ivy League campuses, certainly for as long as I can remember.
CURRENT: Any advice to aspiring public servants, or lawyers?
Lefkowitz: We are going to have a very exciting political presidential campaign that’s going to heat up next year and then really crest obviously in the summer and fall of 2016. One of the best things that young people can do is volunteer on a presidential campaign, on either side of the aisle. It’s a fantastic experience and you will learn a great deal about politics and public policy. I was fortunate to work on the 1988 campaign for President Bush when he ran against Governor Dukakis. I was only 25 years old and I was going all over New York State having public debates as a surrogate for the candidate with elected Democrat officials – in synagogues and community centers and YMCAs. Being involved in the political process is a fantastic experience, so take advantage of the upcoming presidential race.
Lefkowitz: Well, we’re not in the post-Obama era yet, alas. But I think what we’ve learned is that promoting democracy as an end in and of itself is pretty challenging because democracy doesn’t necessarily work for everyone in the same way. I think promoting free markets as an avenue towards bringing about democracy might in some instances be a more productive pathway, because free markets actually appeal more naturally to everyone and they tend to be one of the most effective means of propelling the spirit of democracy – enlightened self-interest. Free markets promote liberty; they promote equality of opportunity in the most effective way; and then unleash the spirit of human ingenuity and productivity. But whether the ultimate form of government in another country is going to be a U.S. style democracy, or something different should not be the ultimate objective. I mean, we’ve got a lot of democracies around the world that are functioning pretty well and they don’t look very much like the United States.
CURRENT: Do you see any potential ethical issues or ethical complications with democracy promotion? At what point does it become inappropriate or ethically problematic to dictate to another country how they should govern?
Lefkowitz: Well I don’t think we should be dictating to other countries how they should govern at all. I think we have to respect national sovereignty – except when someone else’s sovereign actions impinge on our own security or significantly impinge on the security of allies. But basically, when countries are living in peace with one another I don’t think it’s really our business what form of government another nation has.
CURRENT: Did you see The Interview?
Lefkowitz: No I have not seen The Interview. Somehow, a comedy about the North Korean regime just didn’t appeal to me.
CURRENT: Let’s talk about North Korea anyway. You’ve obviously been a huge part of the campaign to promote human rights in North Korea. What parts of the work you’ve done have been successful over the long term?
Lefkowitz: Well, I think there is a real recognition now – really around the world – that human rights violations are a serious issue in North Korea. And when I got involved doing this work in 2005, basically no one – certainly very few people – were aware of the dimension of the human rights catastrophe in North Korea. Now, the regime’s depredations are well known. There’s also been some real movement on the part of a lot of the European countries, particularly in the United Nations to take some action – obviously within the limits of what the UN does.
CURRENT: How did the administration juggle concern for North Korea’s nuclear program, on the one hand, and its human rights abuses, on the other?
Lefkowitz: The fundamental focus of our North Korea policy was strategic and national security and it focused on the nuclear issue, and the dominant feature of our policy, at the time, was focused on the six party talks [a series of multilateral negotiations held intermittently since 2003 for the purpose of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program]. I was a strong proponent, and in many respects really a lone voice, of folding human rights issues into that dialogue, to create a linkage, much as we did during the Cold War with the Soviet Union – a linkage among military, economic and human rights issues. It seemed to me that in a dialogue just focused on nuclear issues we were never really going to succeed. And, in fact, to this day I think we are losing that race, not winning that race. I still think had we incorporated human rights in the dialogue, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, we would have had a little more latitude and there would have been different leverage points—we could have used the system of carrots and sticks much more effectively, than in the binary or zero sum dialogue focused just on the nuclear issue.
CURRENT: The Obama administration has been faced with a similar issue regarding Iran. What are your thoughts on the way Obama has dealt with the human rights aspect of Iran, and do you think a dual track is being pursued?
Lefkowitz: Human rights promotion would have been, I think, a very effective lever to have incorporated into our Iran strategy. We should have been doing much more to promote human rights issues through the Internet, and as part of our diplomacy. Because I think the citizens of Iran are not being well-served by their own leadership right now, and even though the Iranian population is more than a generation removed from pre-Ayatollah Iran, the natural sympathies of many Iranians are not nearly as anti-Western as their leadership is. Again, I think that a great deal of the problems we are living with now regarding Iran are a result of what we’ve experienced over the last six or seven years with the United States withdrawing more and more from exerting its influence and power around the world. It started with the president’s Cairo speech, and the one thing you can say is that the president has been consistent in this area; he is uncomfortable with the projection of American power and American influence. And when America doesn’t project its power and its influence, what happens is very predictable. Bullies and thugs step in and try to fill the vacuum. But unlike in a schoolyard, some of the bullies and thugs around the world have access to very serious weapons and armies.
CURRENT: What’s your opinion on the impact of sanctions on Iran?
Lefkowitz: Sanctions have had a real impact in Iran. In fact, they have been more effective than many people would have expected, but that is because we were able to actually develop a true international coalition behind the sanctions. For sanctions to have a real impact, you have to develop a true international coalition. I don’t know that sanctions were ever going to be enough to deal fully with the Iranian threat, but they seem to have been working. So it’s somewhat inexplicable why the President is rushing to try to do a deal, and is so afraid of continuing sanctions. In contrast to Iran, on the other side of that continent, you can look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine, and that might be a place where sanctions would not be nearly as helpful. First, there isn’t anything close to an international coalition for sanctions with respect to Russia. And second, in that situation, one has to take a step back and actually understand a little bit more about Russia’s motivation and Russia’s own history because the situation has more shades of gray than Iran.
CURRENT: Since you brought up Ukraine, let’s tackle that region. There has been a lot of talk about the violations of international law that have been going on in the Ukraine crisis but there hasn’t been a focus at all on the human rights issues, the more human side of the issue. What role do you think human rights concerns will ultimately play in the United States decision to get more or less involved?
Lefkowitz: In terms of what role human rights will play in the U.S. policy regarding the Ukraine, I don’t think it will play much of a role. I don’t think this administration cares very much about human rights violations around the world. We’ve heard almost no comment about all of the human rights violations in China, and I don’t expect to hear much of anything about human rights violations in the Ukraine. Ironically, it seems that the only place one hears about human rights violations anymore is Israel, despite the fact that whatever its flaws, Israel’s human rights record is far more impressive than any of its neighbors. I think there are significant issues, as well as international law issues, in terms of Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine, but part of the overall outrage that we hear in the United States about this comes from a mindset that territorial borders are sacrosanct. And I think that we have to at least recognize that from the perspective of Russians, the Ukrainian independence is only 21 years old and Russian history is very, very long. That’s something we should be cognizant of as we formulate policies. Russia is an important player on the global stage, and as Henry Kissinger commented a few weeks ago, Putin may be acting a little bit like Peter the Great, but he is still a far cry from Stalin.
CURRENT: What do you think of Obama’s strategy in dealing with ISIS?
Lefkowitz: Unlike dealing with a sovereign state with more than 50 million people and significant territory of strategic significance, ISIS is basically a collection of terrorists or at most, at least for now, a wannabe “terrorist state.” When they kidnap Americans, and behead Americans, there should be swift and very serious retaliation. So while ISIS clearly does not present the kind of strategic threat right now that a nuclear Iran would present, we should be very wary of the consequences of projecting any weakness with respect to ISIS.
CURRENT: Would you support the use of ground troops in a sizable way?
Lefkowitz: One of the President’s top foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, recently acknowledged that ground troops would be necessary against ISIS, but that they wouldn’t be U.S. troops. That’s precisely the kind of mixed messages we are sending. Right now ISIS is a serious problem and if, as the administration recognizes, the U.S. should confront it, then we should not shy away from using ground troops or just rely on foreign troops – especially now when a relatively small number of ground troops should be sufficient. If we let ISIS fester and grow, it will surely become a much larger problem.
CURRENT: Did the Bush’s administration’s actions in Iraq lead to the vacuum that lead to ISIS? If more military intervention in that region just leads to more violence, are we approaching the issue intelligently?
Lefkowitz: I think the combination of the Obama-led American withdrawal from Iraq with his vacillation in Syria is what really created the vacuum that gave rise to ISIS. And it has also led to Iran largely supplanting the U.S. as the dominant power in Iraq – which is the really dangerous byproduct of our 2011 withdrawal from Iraq. When I was a student at Columbia, I took a class with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. I remember a lecture he gave about the Iran-Iraq war, which was going on at the time. Brzezinski said that the American strategy in those days was basically to support whichever side was losing, either directly or through surrogates. There is a parallel now in the struggle between Sunnis and the Shias and the threat that each poses to U.S. interests. So maybe it’s in our national interest for neither side to prevail decisively.
CURRENT: Bringing the conversation into our own government: America is very much not a country of dynasties, but we are faced with a potential Bush-Clinton race. What does that mean for our identity as a country?
Lefkowitz: We were only six presidents into our republic before we had our first dynasty, so its not so foreign. I think that if we end up with a Jeb Bush—Hillary Clinton race, it would actually be a very good race. I think you would end up having, in my view, the most sensible and responsible representatives from each of the major political parties. I think that would be a good thing for this country. And I think it would be a healthy and a vigorous debate.
CURRENT: Zooming back in a little, and bringing the focus more locally — over the last couple years we’ve seen a really strong showing of leftist activity on campus and leftist ideology being the only acceptable ideology, and we are wondering what the experience on campus was like when you were a student and what you make of the culture at Columbia today.
Lefkowitz: Today, you may have a very strong leftist movement on campus, but you also have conservative outlets. We didn’t have anything like that when I was a college student. The major issue of the day was the divestment movement from South Africa and everywhere from John Jay up to the steps of Hamilton there were shanties, and for several months people lived outside in these shanties and there were protests everyday about the divestment funds in South Africa. When I was at Columbia, there were very few visible outlets for conservatives. One area where there are similarities between our experiences relates to Israel. I went to college before the Intifada, but there were certainly anti-Israel protests regarding the building of settlements. But they were not nearly as well-attended as they are today, and the anti-Israel protests were not fused with anti-Semitism as they are today. In recent years, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have merged in a particularly poisonous way. But, as you know, just as you have your Rashid Khalidi, we had our Edward Said. So there are a lot of parallels between your experience and my experience in the 1980s. As for the overall Zeitgeist, the liberal perspective has been the dominant perspective on most college campuses and certainly Ivy League campuses, certainly for as long as I can remember.
CURRENT: Any advice to aspiring public servants, or lawyers?
Lefkowitz: We are going to have a very exciting political presidential campaign that’s going to heat up next year and then really crest obviously in the summer and fall of 2016. One of the best things that young people can do is volunteer on a presidential campaign, on either side of the aisle. It’s a fantastic experience and you will learn a great deal about politics and public policy. I was fortunate to work on the 1988 campaign for President Bush when he ran against Governor Dukakis. I was only 25 years old and I was going all over New York State having public debates as a surrogate for the candidate with elected Democrat officials – in synagogues and community centers and YMCAs. Being involved in the political process is a fantastic experience, so take advantage of the upcoming presidential race.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.