It's a bad Friday morning for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mona Juul, Norway's second-in-command at the United Nations in New York, wrote a confidential internal report for her country's foreign ministry, which is a major UN funder. In a memo, she castigates Ban for his lack of vision and leadership. She describes him as "spineless," a "passive observer" to the Myanmar situation, his work as "fruitless," and questions the damage he's done. 

The memo leaked.

Back in June, Jacob Heibrunn made a forceful argument to the same effect for Foreign Policy. Seems prescient, huh? 

Full text of the Juul memo below. 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's fruitless visit to Burma in the beginning of July is indicative of a Secretary-General and an organization who are struggling to show leadership. In a time when the UN and the need for multilateral solutions to global crises are more needed than ever, Ban and the UN are conspicuous by their absence. During the last six months, where the follow-up to the many crises that left their imprint on the General Assembly during the fall should have brought the Secretary-General and the UN into play at full force, the opposite seems to have happened.

In relation to the financial crisis , neither the Secretary-General nor the General Assembly - despite the summit on the financial crisis during the end of June - have shown themselves to be the most important arena, and the vacuum is being filled by the G-20 and other actors. Ban's voice on behalf of the G-172 and the poor is barely being registered. And at times an invisible Secretary-General, in combination with a rather special president of the General Assembly, has to a large extent placed the UN on the sidelines and the organisation has not known when to act. In the environment/energy area  the UN also struggles to be relevant, despite the planned climate summit at the opening of the General Assembly in the fall. Even though the Secretary-General repeats ad nauseam that Copenhagen must "seal the deal", there is widespread concern that the UN summit will not contribute anything worth mentioning in the process towards Copenhagen.

In the many political/security-related  crises around the world the Secretary-General's leadership and ability to deliver on behalf of the international organization are also found wanting. Burma  is a shining example. There was no shortage of warnings that the Secretary-General should not go at this time. The Americans were among the most sceptical of him going, while the British believed he should. Special Envoy Gambari was also sceptical at the outset, but Ban insisted. Gambari noted that recent negative press (with headlines such as "Whereabouts unknown" in The Times and "Nowhere Man" in Foreign Policy) had made Ban even more determined to visit Burma. After a seemingly fruitless visit by the Secretary-General, the UN's "good offices" will be made even more difficult. Special Envoy Gambari will have major problems during the aftermath, after "the top man" has failed and the generals in Yangoon no longer want to meet with him.

Another example of weak handling by the Secretary-General is the war in Sri Lanka . The Secretary-General was a powerless observer to thousands of civilians losing their lives and becoming displaced from their homes. The authorities in Colombo refused to see the Secretary-General while the war was ongoing, but he was heartily invited - and accepted an invitation - as soon as the war was "won". Even though the UN's humanitarian effort has been active and honest enough, the moral voice and authority of the Secretary-General has been missing.

In other "crises areas" such as Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and not least the Congo , the Secretary-General's appeals, often irresolute and lacking in dedication, seem to fall on deaf ears. Many would also claim that the handling of the investigative committee, following the war in Gaza , ended with an unstable and overly careful follow up.

More surprising, and all the more disappointing, is that Ban Ki-moon has been almost absent on the issue of disarmament and non-proliferation. This was an issue he himself held forward as a principal area of focus before he took over his post. The re-organisation of the department for disarmament into an office directly under the Secretary-General, run by a High Representative, signalled a major focus on this area, also given the Secretary-General's background on the Korean peninsula. With discussions of a new non-proliferation agreement in 2010 and a U.S. administration that have put the theme much higher on the agenda, it is discouraging that the Secretary-General is not to a larger degree involved.

What all these examples have in common is that a spineless and charmless Secretary-General  , has not compensated this by appointing high profile and visible coworkers. Ban has systematically appointed Special Representatives and top officals in the Secretariat who have not been visibly outstanding - with the exception of Afghanistan. In addition he seems to prefer to be in the center without competition from his coworkers and has implied quite clearly that press statements are for him exclusively. The result is that the UN is a less visible and relevant actor in various areas where it would have been natural and necessary for the UN to be engaged. An honorable exception is the appointment of Helen Clark as the new leader of UNDP . She has in a short time, done good things. It will be interesting to see if she will be given space to give the UN a profile in the area of development. As a woman from this side of the world, Clark could soon turn into a candidate for Ban´s second term.

It is common knowledge that it was a deliberate choice of the former US administration not to prefer an activist Secretary-General. The current American Administration  has not yet signalled any changes in its postition towards Ban, however, there are rumours that in certain quarters in Washington Ban is refered to as a "one term SG." It is understood that people in the circles of Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton are very negative to Ban, but neither of them has given any declarations. China  is also quite positive to him and it is primarily China who holds the key to Ban´s second mandate. Russia has for a long time been dissatisfied with the Secretary-General´s handling of both Kosovo and Georgia but also the lack of appointments of Russians to leading position at the UN. At the same time the Russians, however, have no problems with a not too-interventionist Secretary-General.

Half way through his term, one feels that the member states are increasingly negative towards Ban. Many considered that Ban should be given time and he would improve as he gained experience and any comparison with his charismatic predecessor was unfair. Among those, however, the tone has changed, and now the argument of his learning-potential  has expired and the lack of charisma has become a burden. The Secretary-General seems to function quite well when he sticks to a script and performs at larger meetings and arrangements. The problem arises when he is "on his own" and is incapable of setting the agenda, inspiring enthousiasm and show leadership- not even internally. The consequence of Ban´s lack of engagement and interest in studying well enough the problems, is that he fails to be an effective actor or negotiator in the many negotiation processes he is supposed to handle.

The atmosphere in the "house" is described as being less than motivating.  The decision making structure is hampered by the fact that all information both up and down is filtered by the omni-present chef de cabinet, Kim. After the latest round of negative media coverage, it is understood that the atmosphere on the 38th floor is rather tense . Ban has constant outbreaks of rage which even the most cautious and experienced staff find hard to tackle. The relations with the Deputy-Secretary-General Migiro are also tense and her marge de manouvre seems - if possible- to have decreased. There are constant rumours of replacements and reshuffling.  In addition to constant rumours about Migiro leaving, there are rumours that the overwhelmingly well liked OCHA chief John Holmes will be promoted to chef de cabinet and that Nambiar will leave. Same goes with the head of DPA, Pascoe - Holmes is also tipped as a candidate for his succession. The Brits are understood to want that position "back".  These are, however, only rumours and most likely Ban will continue with the same staff - at least until the end of the year. If that is enough to secure him another term, only time can tell.

It seems the most comment-worthy aspect of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Cape Verde last Friday was neither her meeting with Prime Minister José Maria Neves nor the praise she heaped on the government as a "model of democracy and economic progress in Africa." It was her headband.

In a rare nod to her stylings as first lady, Clinton sported a beloved accessory that's been missing on the political scene for more than a decade -- with good reason. Please, please send it back to wherever it came from. Headbands don't suit anyone over the age of eight, least of all a secretary of state who's trying desperately to be taken seriously.

I'm sure she was fighting some frizz after her grueling, 11-day, seven-nation tour of Africa last week, but that's really no excuse.

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Two weeks ago, Bill Clinton, the former U.S. president and husband of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visited North Korea. He met with dictator Kim Jong-il and secured the release of two American journalists who had been held there for months. 

This past weekend, Sen. Jim Webb traveled to Myanmar on a trip through Southeast Asia. Webb -- who likely knows more about the region than anyone else on the Hill -- has long criticized U.S. sanctions on Myanmar. He met with the head of the country's military junta and leading dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. And he secured the release of an American who had been jailed for breaking into Suu Kyi's compound, where she is on house arrest. 

The Obama administration and U.S. news outlets have described these two missions as "private diplomacy." Webb and Clinton are both foreign-policy heavyweights outside the administration. Their stature and connections provided them with the latitude to make entreaties to these rogue, adversarial governments. They offered nothing in terms of aid or support or promises of policy-change -- they did not represent the Washington, of course. But they offered good press and a thread back to the capital -- which proved enough for the strongmen, Kim and Shwe.

Clearly, though, the word "private" is not totally accurate here. Both did it with the administration's nod and help.

The Washington Post wrote of Clinton's visit: "The trip came about only after weeks of back-channel conversations involving academics, congressional figures, and senior White House and State Department officials, said sources involved in the planning. North Korea rejected the administration's first choice for the trip -- former vice president Al Gore." The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House approved Webb's mission -- and he used a military plane for the trips.

All of which leaves me a bit queasy, though ultimately hopeful, about this rash of private diplomatic missions.

Part of me thinks the White House shouldn't be in the lame business of disavowing trips it clearly had a hand in making. Further, I worry the United States gave up an opportunity to publicly demand something out of Yangon. Clinton herself has said the United States would consider trading an easing of sanctions for the release of Suu Kyi. Webb may have made some headway towards that goal. But to hear Clinton or Obama comment on it would have doubtless brought a sense of urgency to the issue and shined a brighter spotlight on what the junta needs to change.

On the other hand, both the United States and the rogue governments got what they wanted. The U.S. gave up virtually nothing, got its citizens back, and won some good press for its diplomatic successes. Myanmar and North Korea got, for a moment, to look magnanimous and reasonable -- tempered by the stories about their human-rights abuses, and the fact that Washington did not send interlocutors with actual foreign policy power (Clinton herself, or a committee chair, say) to confer with them.

I suppose these carefully charted and subtle missions proved to work fine. To consider them isolated incidences or unqualified successes (or failures) would be the worst misjudgment -- foreign policy is always about carrots and sticks, and back and forth. This White House gets that really well.

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A sea of mourners besieged the cortege of former Philippine President Corazon Aquino today as it passed along Manila's central business district and brought the capital to a standstill. After a 16-month battle with colon cancer, and in the wake of numerous state-sponsored "healing masses", Aquino died on August 1. Her body will lie in state at the Manila Cathedral until her funeral on Wednesday.

"Cory" was the wife of national hero Ninoy Aquino, head of the opposition to former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Once dismissed by Marcos as a "mere housewife", Aquino was catapulted into political limelight after her husband's assassination and went on to lead the 1986 non-violent People Power Revolution that ended Marcos' 20-year regime and made her Asia's first female president.  

Despite seven coup attempts during her term in office, Aquino remained a symbol of Filipino democracy and a firm fixture on the national political arena until her death. Most recently, Aquino was one-half of an unlikely coalition of former presidents (the other half being Joseph Estrada, whom Aquino herself helped oust from the presidency in 2001 with the second People Power Revolution) that repeatedly called for incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's resignation. Even after being diagnosed with cancer, Aquino continued to serve as a rallying point for Arroyo's opposition and remained an outspoken critic of the proposed charter change.

But Aquino's death will likely foreshadow the death of the anti-Arroyo movement. If anyone was capable of bringing to life a third People Power Revolution, it was her. Besides a nation in mourning, what she leaves behind is a vacuum in Filipino politics -- that functions almost exclusively on cults of personality -- for a beloved figurehead.   

Yet one politician guaranteed to never fill that void is Arroyo, whose current visit to Washington has been altogether eclipsed by Aquino's death, if the papers in Manila are any indication. In the face of mounting unpopularity, Arroyo's hopes of a triumphant return to the international stage and a standard-issue U.S. blessing went unnoticed back home. Perhaps with Aquino or without, Arroyo's days in office are numbered.

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American President Barack Obama has pulled the plug on a scrolling electronic ticker at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, three years after it was installed to flash pro-democracy messages at passersby -- and annoy the hell out of former Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Just one in a series of tit-for-tat exchanges the two governments engaged in during the Bush and Castro presidencies, the propaganda ticker streamed five-foot tall crimson words in Spanish and English, criticizing the local government and extolling the virtues of American-style freedom. It ran adages by Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln -- and then some lesser known sayings:

Some go around in Mercedes, some in Ladas, but the system forces almost everyone to hitch rides.

In 2006 Castro retaliated by erecting hundreds of 100-foot-high flag poles in the "Anti-Imperialist Plaza" opposite the Interests Section, meant to symbolize the Cuban people's struggle -- and conveniently obstructing view of the ticker.

For a few weeks now the messages have stopped flashing high above the streets of Havana, and although U.S. diplomats initially cited "technical difficulties" as the cause, they say they have no plans to turn it back on. It is a small, but symbolic, gesture as the Obama administration continues to ease hard-line policies against Cuba, and promises a normalization of relations between the two countries in the seemingly not-so-distant future.

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As promised, Barack Obama recorded a video response to several questions from Africans submitted by text message about his administration's policy towards Africa.

That only three were answered is probably a let down to the more than 5,000 people who submitted questions. However, the White House tried to reiterate its interest in African concerns by allowing three African journalists from Senegal, Kenya and South Africa to each select a question. The video is below and to summarize the three questions were:

1. How can Africa reverse its brain drain and lure skilled Africans back to the continent?
2. What did the administration intend to signal by choosing Ghana
3. How can Africa promote international trade? 

These aren't exactly the hardest questions ever, and Obama had time to prepare, but the video, which was released to African radio and tv stations, shows a president who in his own words, is "probably as knowledgeable about African history as anybody who's occupied my office."

This is a good thing. Now let's see how the policy measures up. 

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe labeled US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson an "idiot" following the first meeting between the president an a US official in many years. The two statesmen were introduced during the recent African Union meeting in Libya, after which President Mugabe told Zimbabwean paper The Herald:

You would not speak to an idiot of that nature. I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what to do and what not to do. We have the whole of [the South African Development Community] working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like Carson, you see, wanting to say: 'You do this, you do that.' Who is he? I hope he was not speaking for Obama.

Mugabe's appraisals of US envoys in the past is little better, calling Carson's predecessor Jendayi Frazer:

A little American girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute.

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Dennis Ross is the Lebron James of Middle East diplomacy."

—David Makovsky, coauthor with Ross of Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East

(An apt analogy, if only because Lebron has yet to win the NBA title -- just as Ross hasn't achieved any breakthroughs on Middle East peace. Also, Ross was a baller back in the day.)

Israel:

We share President Obama's hope that the American effort heralds the opening of a new era that will bring an end to the conflict and to general Arab recognition of Israel as the nation of the Jewish people that lives in security and peace in the Middle East.

Israel is committed to peace and will do all it can to expand the circle of peace while considering its national interests, first and foremost being security.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran:

You witness that in Afghanistan, American warplanes bomb people and kill some 150 not once, but 10 and 100 times. They kill people continually. So, terrorist groups, do what you are doing there.

If the new president of America wants a change of face, America should change this behaviour. Words and talk will not result in change.

Iraq:

The use of Koranic sayings plays a big part in a positive change of picture, but there is a necessity for action.

Hezbollah:

The Islamic world does not need moral or political sermons. It needs a fundamental change in American policy beginning from a halt to complete support for Israeli aggression on the region, especially on Lebanese and Palestinians, to an American withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and a stop to its interference in the affairs of Islamic countries.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood:

There's an unjust perspective on the part of the American president toward the Palestinian issue, one that does not differ from former President Bush's and the neoconservatives' perspective.

Hamas:

Speaking about a policy of pursuing a war against extremism and working towards two states for peoples on Palestinian lands is no different from the policy of his predecessor, George W Bush.

Talking Points Memo:

Not only did the speech specifically reject western (and American) colonialism, its entire tone was the antithesis of colonial. This is a profoundly different American voice, one that will do much to advance American goals rather than to sabotage them.

Arab leaders who were listening to this speech might want to consider a similar speech of their own to their people.

Shimon Peres, president of Israel:

President Obama's journey to Saudi Arabia and Egypt could be an opportunity. It reflects both the need for an historic change in the Middle East and a unique chance of achieving it. 

Real Clear Politics:

The Middle East requires realpolitiks. It's indeed intriguing that Obama came to Egypt for this speech. The location and timing underline the moral choices made. And on the Middle East no less, where the means so often define the effort because the ends constantly prove elusive.

Matthew Yglesias:

This seems connected to me to the remarkable way in which this speech is being pushed out in multiple media—on television, but also on Twitter and on Facebook and via SMS and all in multiple languages—to a global audience. Part of the rise of Obama is the rise of a post-television, post-sound bite technological paradigm ... It creates a whole new world from one in which the point of a speech is just to field test a couple of zingers in hopes that one or two of them gets picked up for the evening news.

Stephen Hayes:

Perhaps the most curious passage was this one: "Given our interdependence, any world order which elevates any nation or group of people above any other will inevitably fail." This is nonsense, of course, as Obama seems to recognize several sentences later when he says that America will 'relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.

The Economist:

Mr Obama has addressed Muslims before. ... But this speech fulfilled his pre-inauguration promise to make a bold bid to restore American prestige with a direct public address in a Muslim capital. ...

Yet the constant refrain, heard on Cairo’s streets as well as from media pundits, is that Arabs and Muslims would like to see Mr Obama’s words matched by deeds. 'To win our hearts, you must win our minds first, and our minds are set on the protection of our interests,' declared one of the reams of editorials, columns and open letters from across the region before Mr Obama spoke.

The Washington Times:

If they want respect, Muslim states must seek active ways to improve relations with the United States. We would like to see a generally more positive and welcoming tone, with fewer anti-American harangues in official media and firebrand sermons in state-controlled mosques. ... Respect for Islam would be much more palatable if the Muslim world decriminalized conversion to other faiths and allowed true religious freedom, as Muslims enjoy in America.

Stephen Walt:

The truest thing he said? "No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust."

Marc Lynch:

President Obama's speech today in Cairo met the bar he set for himself.

Hussein Ibish, senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine:

The ball is now in the Arab court – he needs and deserves their help, and they have a vital interest in providing it. Arab governments, organizations and individuals should, in their own interests, move quickly to do everything possible to reciprocate and support the President’s bold gestures.

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Guy Dinmore of the Financial Times reports that Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini is planning is flying to Tehran today to meet with his Iranian counterpart, and possibly President Ahmadinejad. This is a break from the official EU policy of avoiding high-level nation-to-nation contact with the Iranians:

Mr Frattini will be the most senior official from a European government to visit Iran in the four years since Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad was elected president.

Western diplomats expressed dismay that Mr Frattini intended to break EU ranks. They also said that Washington had not given Rome a “green light”. Allies have warned Mr Frattini that he risks handing a propaganda victory to Iran’s hardline president less than a month before he stands for re-election.

EU governments had agreed to shun Iran because of its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment programme in line with United Nations resolutions. The decision to keep contacts limited to Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief who last visited Tehran a year ago, was reinforced by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s rhetorical attacks on Israel.

Dinmore also notes that Italy has long resented being left out of the "EU3" group of Britain, France, and Germany that has dominated decision-making on Iranian issues. 

Frattini's diplomatic freelancing raises some questions about the EU's ability ability to present a unified foreign-policy front. Recently-departed EU President Mirek Topolanek said earlier this month that the one regret of his tumultuous term was not keeping Nicolas Sarkozy on a shorter leash. The French president's shuttle diplomacy in the Caucasus and the Middle East "gave the impression that the French were dominating the show.” Given this impression, it's not exactly surprising that countries like Italy would look to pull off some diplomatic coups of their own.

German Green Party candidate and possible future foreign minister Jürgen Trittin unleashed this undiplomatic zinger during a parliamentary debate over tax havens: 

"That's the problem when one tries to fight tax evasion with Gordon Brown. It is as likely to succeed as if one were trying to fight the Mafia with Silvio Berlusconi."

Der Spiegel reports that the U.S. president is passing up an official visit to Berlin when he heads to Europe in June for the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landing, in favor of a more personal stopover:

On Tuesday, the news became public that a White House advance team is currently in the eastern German city of Dresden, where they are looking for possible accommodations for the president. In addition to a short visit to the city on the Elbe River, the president is also intending to visit the memorial at the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald. Obama's great-uncle, Charlie Payne, served in the 89th Infantry Division during World War II and participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced labor camp that was a satellite camp of Buchenwald. ...

An official visit by Obama to Berlin seems highly unlikely during the German election campaign -- even though Chancellor Merkel for one would prefer the popular US president to make an official appearance at the Chancellery instead of touring around the states of Saxony and Thuringia.

Obama's already cut short a talk with Gordon Brown for a meeting with the Boy Scouts and bumped Lula for St. Patrick's Day. Now he's snubbing the chancellor of Germany for a couple days of tourism? (The German government also can't be thrilled that Obama's most memorable photo-op is likely to be at a concentration camp.)

So what's the deal? Does Obama just not like hanging out with other world leaders?

For a while last fall, I unsuccesfully tried to start an Internet meme by labelling other leader's attempts to associate themselves with Obama as "hopejacking." Since taking office, Obama seems to have been making a conscious effort to prevent this phenomenon by keeping eager leaders at arm's length. Consider this excerpt from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's piece today on the Obama administration's relationship with Hamid Karzai:

Ten days before Obama's inauguration, Karzai told Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a private meeting in Kabul that he looked forward to building with Obama the same sort of chummy relationship he had with Bush, which included frequent videoconferences and personal visits.

"Well, it's going to be different," Biden replied, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. "You'll probably talk to him or see him a couple of times a year. You're not going to be talking to him every week."

Obama advisers believe the relationship that Bush developed with Karzai masked the Afghan leader's flaws and made it difficult to demand accountability. Obama has not held a videoconference with Karzai, and the two have spoken by phone just twice. The administration rebuffed Karzai's request for a bilateral visit to Washington this spring, telling him he could come only as part of this week's tripartite summit with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, according to U.S. government officials. Karzai's meeting with Obama today is scheduled for 20 minutes, as is Zardari's. 

For a president who came into office promising to stop neglecting America's allies, Obama doesn't seem particularly excited to talk to them. Critics have charged that Obama has seemed more chummy with Hugo Chávez and Dmitry Medvedev than with staunch U.S. allies like Brown, Sarkozy, and Karzai, but I think the more pertinent point is that Obama seems to be basically friendly to all other world leaders without developing a close relationship with any of them.

Some of this may just be personality. Obama has been branded as aloof and cerebral since he was campaigning on the south side of Chicago and the reputation (seemingly with some justification) has dogged him ever since.

But there's likely also a deliberate effort, as Chandrasekaran suggests, to move away from George W. Bush's more personal style of diplomacy. (Peter Feaver has more on this over at Shadow Government.) This style led Bush to stand by some dubious leaders (Karzai, Pervez Musharraf, Vladimir Putin) with whom he had a close personal relationship while being inordinately preoccupied by belligerent leaders (Chávez, Saddam Hussein) who ultimately didn't prove that much of a threat.

I understand Obama's desire to change, and Bush-style personal diplomacy certainly doesn't seem suited to his temperment, but I worry when the U.S. president seems to want to treat other world leaders like students coming in for office hours. Nobody's suggesting they play a round of hoops, but 20 minutes each just doesn't seem like enough face time to give the leaders of two countries that are vital to U.S. security, no matter what he might think of them.

During his campaign, Obama argued to voters that speaking with other leaders doesn't imply support or agreement. 100+ days in, it's not clear when all that talking is going to start. David Brooks wrote a somewhat corny but basically perceptive column last summer arguing that there are really two Obamas, the cerebral "Dr. Barack" and "Fast Eddie Obama," the wheeling and dealing Chicago pol. I'm glad to have Dr. Barack designing U.S. strategy, but I sometimes wish we could send Fast Eddie to the meetings.

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I asked Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch and a former Clinton administration official, to work through some of the foreign policy implications of the newly released torture memos with me.

We discussed whether the Bush administration memos encouraged other countries to torture, or led to any global uptick in "enhanced interrogation" practices. "I've always tried to be careful not to suggest that countries like Egypt or China or Uzbekistan would be torturing more because the United States was setting a bad example. Obviously, dictatorships torture for their own reasons, and they didn't need [former U.S. President] George W. Bush to show them how," he says.

But, the Bush administration torture of detainees and disavowal of the Geneva Conventions did preclude diplomacy on many occasions, Malinowski says. He testified before the Helsinki Commission in 2007 to make the point:

A couple of years ago, Human Rights Watch was meeting with the Prime Minister of Egypt, and we raised a case in which hundreds of prisoners rounded up after a terrorist bombing were tortured by Egyptian security forces.   The Prime Minister didn't deny the charge.  He answered, "We're just doing what the United States does."  We've had Guantanamo and the administration's interrogation policies thrown back in our face in meetings with officials from many other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and Lebanon.  U.S. diplomats have told us they face the same problem.  A U.S. ambassador to a leading Middle Eastern country, for example, has told us that he can no longer raise the issue of torture in that country as a result. 

Malinowski says the detainee abuse made it difficult for the White House to negotiate any human rights provisions or issues, broadly. "Issues beyond torture were effected, because it enabled authoritarian governments to say, ‘You have no right to lecture us,'" he says. "They were delighted to tweak the United States on it."

The biggest offender? Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who Malinowski described as a "world champion" of chiding the United States via its own policies.

Nevertheless, Malinowski thinks that, despite the horrible details revealed by the Bush administration and International Committee of the Red Cross memos, ultimately their release is a very good thing for the Obama administration.

[Obama] can go to a country like Turkey or Indonesia or Egypt and say, "Look, I know what it's like to face real security threats, and we as Americans understand the temptation to give up some of our liberties and principles to defend ourselves against those threats. But what we've learned the hard way in the last eight years is that those liberties and principles actually make us stronger. You could learn from our example."

That's a much more effective way of arguing the point than going to those same countries and saying, look at our perfect system and our glorious morality, and maybe someday you can be as good as we are. So I think if he uses the experience as a cautionary tale, it will actually make our country a more effective and compelling champion of human rights around the world, ironically.

Here's to hoping so.

Photo: Entrance to Bagram Air Base by Spencer Platt/Getty Images