Najam Publishes Op-Ed on Myanmar Coup
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an op-ed in The Hill discussing the recent military coup in Myanmar (formerly Berma) and how President Joe Biden should respond to this international crisis.
In the article, titled “Biden’s first international crisis, in Myanmar, would be a terrible thing to waste,” Najam discusses the circumstances behind the military’s usurpation of power in Myanmar, the country’s flirtation with democracy, and what the United States can do. While he says there is very little President Biden – or any international actor – can do to mitigate the crisis in Myanmar, Najam argues that Biden’s stance on the issues defining the crisis could define his foreign policy record.
At the heart of the Myanmar coup are two issues: “the sanctity of elections and the abuse of human rights in the name of nationalism. The administration has already condemned the military’s actions and designated the situation a coup, but Najam argues that President Biden should strongly champion rule of law and respecting election results in order to send a message to strongman elsewhere.
An excerpt:
What can Joe Biden do?
The honest answer is, there is very little that the president of the United States — or any international actor, including China — can do to get Myanmar out of the mess it finds itself in. But that should not keep Biden from taking a strong principled stance on the issues that define this crisis, because it is those issues — rather than the immediate political fate of either Aung San Suu Kyi or Min Aung Hlaing — that will be defining Biden’s foreign policy record.
The full op-ed can be read on The Hill‘s website.
Adil Najam is a global public policy expert who also served as the Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. He is the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Professor Najam on his faculty profile.