A Troubling Appointment: National Security Adviser Susan Rice Supports Autocrats and Disdains International Law

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice is seen in the US Capitol.
Photo Credit: AFP

The selection of Susan Rice as President Obama's new national security adviser is highly problematic for those of us who believe that United States foreign policy should be more attuned to international law and human rights and that alleged threats to US national security should be based on empirical evidence rather than unsubstantiated allegations by warmongers.

Rice's willingness to state demonstrable falsehoods to defend actions by the United States and its allies that violate international norms is very troubling. It is all too telling that the mainstream media was so willing to focus on spurious criticisms from the right regarding her initial responses to the killings in Benghazi while ignoring legitimate criticisms from the left.

One example of Rice's disconnect from reality came up in the lead-up to the war in Iraq ten years ago, as independent arms control analysts, scholars, investigative journalists and antiwar activists were challenging the Bush administration's lies about the supposed "Iraqi threat." In an apparent effort to discredit these efforts by those who opposed the rush to war, Rice rushed to the administration's defense by  insisting that, "It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat." This claim came despite the fact that Iraq had disarmed itself of its chemical and biological weapons and eliminated its nuclear program at least eight years earlier. Moreover, despite the success of the UN's disarmament program, Rice asserted that Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on."

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the United Nations that Iraq had reconstituted its biological and chemical weapons arsenal, as well as its nuclear weapons program - and had somehow hidden all this from the hundreds of UN inspectors then in Iraq who were engaged in unfettered inspections. None of this was true, and Powell's transparently false claims were immediately challenged by UN officials, arms control specialists, and much of the press and political leadership in Europe and elsewhere. (See my article written in response to his testimony: " Mr. Powell, You're No Adlai Stevenson.")

Rice, however, was  adamant that Powell had "proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." In light of such widespread and public skepticism from knowledgeable sources, Rice's dismissal of all the well-founded criticism was positively Orwellian: those who blindly accepted Powell's transparently false claims were "well informed," while the UN officials, arms control specialists and others knowledgeable of the reality of the situation were presumably otherwise.

Her openness to another US war in the Middle East became apparent when  she announced in September that "there is no daylight" between the United States and the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu - which has been pushing for a unilateral attack on Iran - regarding Iran's nuclear program.

Rice has also not been averse to supporting autocratic regimes in Africa, recently suppressing a UN report criticizing the government of Rwanda, a US ally, for supporting the M-23 rebels in eastern Congo. The rebels, led by a notorious warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court, have wreaked havoc in the troubled province of North Kivu. Rice dismissed the report,  saying, "It's eastern Congo. If it were not the M23 killing people, it would be some other armed groups."

Similarly, this past September Rice delivered  a eulogy for the late Meles Zenawi, the authoritarian ruler of Ethiopia, whom she referred to as "a true friend to me," calling him "brilliant" and "uncommonly wise, able to see the big picture and the long game."