Carter's three commitments

Jonathan Freedland reports on Jimmy Carter's appearance at the Hay Festival:

The emotional high point came when Carter seemed to be playing the fantasy game himself, offering the opening words of the speech the next president should deliver when he or she is inaugurated next January.

"When I'm the president of the United States," he intoned, the voice still strong, "My country will never again torture a prisoner. When I'm the president of the United States, we will never again attack another country unless our security is directly threatened. When I'm the president of the United States, human rights will be the foundation of our foreign policy."... The audience thundered its applause, signalling that this was the American speech they yearned to hear.

I hope the thunderous applause was for the first and the third of Carter's commitments, those concerning torture and human rights. If military action is ruled out 'unless our security is directly threatened', then so much for the UN Genocide Convention, and indeed so much for human rights as a foundation of US foreign policy when their mass violation doesn't impinge on 'our security'.