Is Obama turning the corner on democracy?

Secretary Clinton outlined the administration’s human rights policy today in a speech at Georgetown University.  The speech made clear that supporting democracy is going to be a foreign policy priority.  According to Clinton:

…supporting democracy and fostering development are cornerstones of our 21st century human rights agenda.

This administration, like others before us, will promote, support, and defend democracy.  We will relinquish neither the word nor the idea to those who have used it too narrowly, or to justify unwise policies.  We stand for democracy not because we want other countries to be like us, but because we want all people to enjoy consistent protection of the rights that are naturally theirs, whether they were born in Tallahassee or Tehran.  Democracy has proven the best political system for making human rights a human reality over the long term…

With China, Russia, and others, we are engaging on issues of mutual interest while also engaging societal actors in these same countries who are working to advance human rights and democracy. The assumption that we must either pursue human rights or our “national interests” is wrong.

…conscience demands that we are not cowed by the overwhelming difficulty of making inroads against misery in the hard places  like Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, North Korea, and Zimbabwe, or on the hard issues like ending gender inequality and discrimination against gays and lesbians—from the Middle East to Latin America, Africa to Asia…

A change has taken place fairly rapidly within the Obama administration.  Even as short as a few weeks ago, many were claiming democracy would not be a priority.  Yet, in the span of three weeks, we have seen three big foreign policy speeches that suggest this is not true, Obama at West Point and in Oslo for the Nobel Prize, and Clinton today.  While I predicted the administration would eventually embrace democracy, I did not expect it this quickly.  I am very pleased.

Michael Allen at Democracy Digest and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) has more.