Gutless Leadership
By Sherwin Pomerantz

For two days this week I have been in Washington DC to attend the Global Business Conference sponsored by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Representatives of 120 countries who do business with the US were invited as were an equivalent number of US business people and government officials to speak about how best to accomplish the President’s stated goal of doubling US exports over the next few years.

During Monday’s session US Trade Representative Ron Kirk spoke about some of the initiatives his office is proposing to make exporting to certain countries easier. One of the initiatives is to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment in order to remove a major obstacle to trade with Russia.

The Jackson–Vanik amendment is a 1974 provision in United States federal law, intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies (originally, countries of the Communist bloc) that restrict freedom of emigration and other human rights. It was a response to the Soviet Union's "diploma taxes" levied on Jews attempting to emigrate, although the amendment doesn't specifically mention Jews and the tax did apply to all Soviet citizens, not only Jews. Nevertheless, shortly after its passage the gates of the Soviet Union did, indeed, open up and over a million Jews emigrated to the west.

The amendment was named after its major co-sponsors, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington and Rep. Charles Vanik of Ohio. The amendment passed both houses of the Congress unanimously. President Gerald Ford signed the bill into law with the adopted amendment on January 3, 1975.

It hit me during Ron Kirk’s presentation on Monday that 40 years ago we had legislators in the US who understood the real power of economic diplomacy, that it was a sword that cut both ways, and that countries that blatantly violated the human rights of their citizens would not be granted equal opportunities to do business with America. Sen. Jackson and Rep. Vanik were legislators with the intestinal fortitude to state their position, convert it into proposed legislation and use their good offices to get the law passed.

Can anyone imagine that happening today? Do legislators today have the guts to link two diverse issues so that enacting US law can become a catalyst for the protection of human rights? I am not so sure.

For example, to date, over 5,000 Syrian citizens have been killed by their own governments’ forces. While a 2003 act by the US government does prohibit the export of certain goods to Syria, food, medicine and other items are exempt from the law. There has been no further update in light of the current murder of Syrian citizens by its own government.

Iran, which is moving ahead in rapid fashion with its nuclear program and continues to threaten Israel with annihilation, does have a series of specific restrictions on trade between the US and Iran which are relatively all encompassing. But why is there no decision by the congress to limit US visits by the President of Iran solely to the UN and to nowhere else? Why is he permitted to make speeches on US college campuses, hold wide ranging press conferences and travel at will when he does visit the US?

Sadly, I fear that the types of legislators which the US was blessed with 40 years ago are now no longer to be seen. Instead we see too many people concerned only about their narrow political interests and not committed, as Jackson and Vanik were, to using their political clout for the greater good of humanity.

Edmund Burke is credited with saying: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The ghosts of Sen. Jackson and Rep. Vanik must be reeling from disappointment regarding the state of our current political leadership.