{"id":530,"date":"2009-03-10T08:03:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-10T13:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/?p=530"},"modified":"2009-03-23T18:20:06","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T23:20:06","slug":"which-side-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2009\/03\/which-side-of-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Which side of history?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>From <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/members\/michele_dunne\/\">Michele Dunne<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"float: right;margin: 5px 10px\" src=\"http:\/\/tbn2.google.com\/images?q=tbn:9MQGj5j8egQRsM:http:\/\/buzzley.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/01\/data.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"130\" height=\"96\" \/>I am one of more than 140 scholars and experts to sign a <a href=\"http:\/\/islam-democracy.org\/documents\/pdf\/Letter_to_Pres_Obama_about_Democracy_-_3-5-09.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">letter<\/a> to President Obama, released today (March 10), asking him to take seriously his inaugural statement that leaders who &#8220;cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent&#8221; are &#8220;on the wrong side of history.&#8221; The question is, on which side of history will the Obama administration place itself in its policy toward the Middle East?<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Early indications are for a return to traditional diplomacy and jettisoning of any serious efforts to promote democracy, freedom, and human rights. While the signatories of this letter might differ on some issues, we are joined by the belief that this early course by Obama and Secretary of State Clinton needs immediate correction. We understand that promoting Middle East peace enjoys a high priority in this administration, and we believe that it is entirely possible to cooperate with Arab governments in that endeavor while also pursuing improved human, civil, and political rights for Arab citizens. In fact, not to do so would be shortsighted and ultimately counter productive.<\/p>\n<p align=\"right\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;color: #808080;font-size: x-small\"><em><span style=\"font-size: xx-small\">Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Michele Dunne I am one of more than 140 scholars and experts to sign a letter to President Obama, released today (March 10), asking him to take seriously his inaugural statement that leaders who &#8220;cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent&#8221; are &#8220;on the wrong side of history.&#8221; The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2306,2117,2361,2252,2270,2269,2253,2229,2284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barry-rubin","category-democracy","category-harvey-sicherman","category-islamism","category-j-scott-carpenter","category-joshua-muravchik","category-michael-rubin","category-michele-dunne","category-tamara-cofman-wittes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}