Skip to footer

When foreign leaders praise US bipartisanship

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is the latest foreign leader to thank both Democrats and Republicans for their long support. Such gratitude from abroad can help remind Americans of the value of bipartisanship in foreign policy – and perhaps on domestic issues, too.

|
AP Photo
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi visits the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Sept. 14.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The leader of Myanmar (Burma) was in Washington in early September to get something – a lifting of sanctions on her country as it makes a historic transition to democracy. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi also gave something. As has happened during recent visits of other foreign leaders, the Nobel Peace Prize winner thanked both a Democratic president and Republicans in Congress for their decades of support.

In addition to meeting with President Obama, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent time with her leading advocate on Capitol Hill, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, the Senate’s majority leader. Her gratitude to both men was a reminder to Americans that despite a hyperpartisanship over domestic issues, foreign policy can still enjoy moments of national consensus.

Earlier this year, Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, delivered a similar message. He praised the longtime bipartisan backing of a US aid package known as Plan Colombia, which created the conditions for a peace deal with the country’s largest rebel group. And even with an ongoing debate over the US military role in Afghanistan, that country’s president, Ashraf Ghani, recently visited Washington offering appreciation for bipartisan support and American sacrifices since 2001.

Any nation hopes it can present a consistent and solid front in its foreign dealings. All the better to project strength and prevent adversaries from exploiting domestic differences. Yet the United States has had a mixed record throughout its long history in making sure political squabbles end at the water’s edge.

“When we have been successful in national security and foreign affairs, it has been because there has been bipartisan support,” writes Robert Gates, the former defense chief under both Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton say they want a bipartisan foreign policy. And in Congress, top Democrats and Republicans on foreign-policy panels try to work together. “Even when we have a disagreement, we have a good discourse and we try to find common ground,” says Rep. Eliot Engel (D) of New York, ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Public debate over the US role in the world is essential to solve today’s complex problems, from climate change to the Syrian war. But just as critical is the ability to form a consensus on US values and interests.

In his framing of the successful strategy that won the cold war against the Soviet Union, American diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1951: “Any message we may try to bring to others will be effective only if it is in accord with what we are to ourselves.”

Perhaps an occasional visit of a grateful foreign leader can help remind Americans who they are as a people. That can help them act as one in international affairs.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to When foreign leaders praise US bipartisanship
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2016/0915/When-foreign-leaders-praise-US-bipartisanship
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe