Public Diplomacy

Senator Obama has inspired yet two other musical cultivations, both coming from the Caribbean.

The Mighty Sparrow, a Caribbean-American of of Grenadian/Trinidadian origin known as the “Calypso King of the World,” composed a song praising Obama.

In the song, titled “Barack the Magnificent,” Sparrow sings: “Barack! Barack! He is fighting for openness and honest government. Barack – is doggedly defiant; phenomenal strength; and wisdom beyond comment.”

Sparrow’s lyrics also urge the Senator to stop the war in Iraq, end the genocide in Darfur, get healthcare for those who “have not,” and to “clean up Washington… in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal.”

According to Sparrow’s website, the singer actually endorsed Senator Obama back in August of 2007 at an “exclusive,” backstage meeting between the two at the Marriott Hotel in Brooklyn. At the meeting Sparrow presented the Senator with a mix tape he composed and recorded as a “tribute to Obama.”

Sparrow said of Obama: “Based on what I have heard, read and researched, I am very impressed by the resplendent vision of Obama (words which entered into his hit song). He is resilient and wise. It is easy to equate him to Solomon.”

One more musical tribute to Senator Obama was recently released by Jamaican Reggae singer Cocoa Tea:

PRI’s The World radio program investigated Carribeans’ views of the US Presidential election.  The program’s correspondent in Jamaica had some interesting insight and quotes from Carribeans themselves on whether Obama holds the promise Sparrow sings about.

Lisa Mullins of Public Radio International’s “The World” program spoke with Mohamad Manzarpour of the BBC’s Persian Service on Iran’s move to suspend talks about Iraq’s regional security.

Toward the end of the conversation Mullins asks Manzarpour about the Iranian public’s reaction to Senator Clinton’s recent remarks about what she would do as President if Iran were to attack Israel: “totally obliterate them.”

Manzarpour reports that there is a lot of interest in the primaries in Iran. He said Clinton’s remarks greatly effected Iranian public opinion: there is “immense worry and anxiety” among Iranians, no matter their political bent, that the next US President might attack Iran.

Do the mass media form or reflect public opinion? Specialists in these matters always answer “both,” but in this election year it’s critical to know which predominates. Take the Rev. Wright “issue.” In the seven weeks since March 18th, when ABC-TV unveiled footage of Wright’s most notorious quotes, the media have incessantly declaimed on behalf of a putatively outraged public. But how much of this was a story created by the media?

Look at the way the New York Times began its front page story today:

WASHINGTON — A majority of American voters say that the furor over the relationship between Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor has not affected their opinion of Mr. Obama…

The Times goes on to cite a number of caveats: some voters were indeed upset; polling on racial matters is often inaccurate; it was a national poll, not a poll of voters in Indiana and North Carolina, etc.
But aren’t we entitled to ask whether, if the public doesn’t care about the “furor,” whose “furor” was it, anyway?
And even if — and this appears to be the case — polls in general have moved away from Obama and toward Clinton in recent weeks, how much of this trend is attributable to the way the media hammered the Rev. Wright story?
To put this in perspective, consider how much media attention Obama’s initial response — his Philadelphia speech on race — received in comparison to Wright’s Detroit NAACP speech and Washington Press Club performance. The answer is that the speech by Obama was treated as a one-day story, reported respectfully, and then disregarded. The Wright story has been covered, seven weeks straight, as though it were the key to Obama’s character and policies.
Even after Obama made a total split with Wright, one week ago, the media focus did not let up. It was simply transmogrified to “Why did it take him so long?” and, contradictorily, “How can Obama denounce him now?” With on-air pundits asking each other “How long will the issue last?” it fell to CNN’s curmudgeon, Jack Cafferty, to respond that the story would last as long as the media kept covering it.
If the votes tomorrow in North Carolina and Indiana go against Barack Obama, the high drama of this campaign will have another, perhaps final, turning point. And that turning point will be traced back to a decision by ABC TV to dig out the Wright tapes and the decision by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, at the urging of Fox’s Sean Hannity, to try to smear Obama’s reputation at the start of the Philadelphia debate.
The public, domestic and foreign, will then have every reason to ask how the American media have come to be so politicized. It will be hard to explain that Stephanopoulos, formerly a campaign tactician for Bill Clinton, had long ago changed from political operative to objective journalist and that, in yesterday’s ABC TV interview with Hillary, she merely outwitted him when she stood up to take a question from the audience, forcing the diminuitive Stephanopoulos into the background.
The media thrive on conflict and, in a close election, there’s plenty of conflict to cover. But in the Wright affair we have at its essence a made-by-media conflict that could be just enough to tip the scales in Hillary’s favor. In which case, the “furor” over Jeremiah Wright will show the media echo chamber to be just as gullible and careless today as it was in its early Iraq coverage.

NAFSA: Association of International Educators is a non-profit, professional association of international educators dedicated to promoting international education in America and worldwide. US International education centers around two flows: foreign students travelling to the US to study and experience American life, and American students travelling abroad to study and experience living abroad.

Recently, we have seen the number of international students coming to the US shrinking. This is due to both stricter visa policies, and the weakening of the US “brand” around the world. As much as international education has always been a component of public diplomacy, it becomes ever more dependent on the success of US public diplomacy efforts now.

NAFSA has launched an advocacy campaign aimed at educating the US Presidential candidates on how to bring these flows back to a healthy pace. To find out more about NAFSA’s efforts, and how international education plays a role in US Public Diplomacy, I conversed with the Director of Media Relations at NAFSA’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

FPA: What role does international education play in US foreign policy? More specifically, how is it linked to America’s image in the world?

NAFSA: To be effective, US foreign policy must be underpinned by a strong foundation for dialogue and collaboration with other nations.   Building the international knowledge and cross-cultural skills of Americans through study abroad and foreign-language and area studies; and attracting the international students and scholars who are the world’s next generation of leaders and innovators, are key ways we can build that foundation.  Over time, these person-to-person ties of understanding, personal experience, and mutual respect contribute enormously to America’s ability to know the world and to the world’s ability to know America. Fostering and sustaining these long-term relationships is at the heart of public diplomacy, we believe, and it is the essence of international education.

FPA: What are NAFSA’s most important concerns regarding the next U.S. President?

NAFSA: The next US president will need to act deliberately to address serious concerns about America’s standing on the global stage: its global leadership and its perceived international legitimacy. We believe the next president should act quickly and decisively to leverage the considerable strengths of international education in addressing these challenges.

FPA: What efforts does NAFSA have underway to help make international education a priority of the next administration?

NAFSA: We are committed to engaging the presidential candidates and the American public on the importance of international education, and to putting forward NAFSA’s policy proposals for their consideration. At our annual conference in Washington, DC, in late May— attracts 8,000 international educators from around the world—advisors to the presidential campaigns will have an opportunity to speak to our attendees about how the next president might leverage international education to address U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy challenges.

FPA: Which candidates have been or seem to be most open to making international education a priority in their foreign policy?

NAFSA: NAFSA is a nonpartisan organization and we do not endorse or focus on specific candidates. While each of the candidates has noted America’s declining global image, they have not put forward detailed plans on the issue of public diplomacy. We very much hope they will and that those plans will include an integral role for international education.  We stand ready to work with the transition team of whichever candidate is elected to put forward our best thinking and to help them establish a proactive national strategy to restore US competitiveness for foreign students and scholars and to ensure that American students are internationally educated.    

FPA: How do you envision the international education policy you speak of in NAFSA’s recent policy brief playing out in the next administration? Who needs the directive to do what, exactly?

NAFSA: We call on the next president of the United States to announce a major initiative on international education that will increase our country’s understanding of and capacity to communicate with the world; and to strengthen America’s international relationships. This policy should be coordinated by a White House official designated by the president.  An international education policy should have these goals:  to restore America’s status as a magnet for international students and scholars; to establish study abroad as an integral component of U.S. undergraduate education; to increase Americans’ international literacy through the internationalization of American education at all levels; and to strengthen and increase the availability of citizen and community-based international exchange and service programs.

These days, the two connected concerns of this blog — foreign opinion of the U.S. and how U.S. Presidential candidates would deal with it — are in the background while America struggles at home.

The economy overshadows Iraq as America’s chief concern. The dead-heat race for the Democratic nomination is in turmoil over the inflammatory comments by Barack Obama’s former pastor.

Doubtless some of what Rev. Wright says would be endorsed by America’s more vociferous overseas critics. But with supporters like that, who needs detractors? Obama’s main concern, at this point, is to denounce, renounce or otherwise distance himself from the controversial pastor while minimizing the importance of his 20-year relationship with him. To do one without the other, will call into question Obama’s judgment. To do nothing will let a train wreck lie on the tracks in full view.

Mentor, pastor, spiritual advisor — whatever Jeremiah Wright was to Barack Obama, today he is something else. Wright’s latest behavior suggests that he is following his own agenda — not Obama’s. Will this eventually help disassociate the two men and move Wright away from the spotlight? No one knows for sure. All that is clear is that Wright is radioactive.

This point, expressed more broadly, has a relevance to public diplomacy.  Candidates or countries understandably welcome external support, but who the supporter is matters fundamentally.  Praise from Wright is now as politically unwelcome as praise from Ahmadinejad.

Forget Iran.  Obama needs direct talks with his enemies at home.

Michael Gerson, George W. Bush’s former speechwriter, spent his twice-weekly Washington Post column this Friday offering advice to the next US President on the virtues of unilateralism.

Gerson begins by tuning his argument to the conservative ear: “In their total war for the right to be dubbed the peace candidate Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama propose a greater reliance on international institutions as an alternative to unilateralism and ad hoc “coalitions of the willing.”"

I am not sure if I have noticed this “total war” Gerson mentions. There are many battles currently underway between Senators Clinton and Obama; the one for bragging rights to become labeled a pacifist doesn’t ring a bell. But it is a helluva way to draw the reader in to your argument, so mission accomplished.

Moving on to Gerson’s main point. He assuages criticism for his former boss’ aversion to multilateralism by predicting that the next US President will choose to do the exact same thing once he or she is in the Oval office:

“It is easy to criticize the current administration — or past administrations — for lacking diplomatic magic that would somehow transform China or Iran into good global citizens. But many of the policies of the next administration are likely to be remarkably similar to what’s in place now.”

Gerson argues this is because and poses “one of the most difficult challenges the next president will face: While international institutions have never been more needed, they have seldom been less effective. The U.N. Security Council — where China and Russia have emerged as reliable protectors of the oppressive and irresponsible — has done little to distinguish itself on Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur or Burma. And global nonproliferation efforts are about to shatter like a glass hammer on Iranian nuclear ambitions.”

Touché. Gerson lays out the options for multilateral approaches for the three Presidential candidates. First option: improve the UN. Second option, supplement the UN with a “more capable and cohesive international organization such as NATO.” Third option: bypass (read: abandon) the UN and invest our efforts in an entirely new multilateral organization, such as the idea of forming a league of democracies, espoused by McCain.”

Not surprisingly Gerson doesn’t find any of these options appealing: “So what realistic option will the next president have when the next genocide commences or the next proliferation threat arrives? Probably a coalition of the willing, led by America. It is the paradox of American influence: In a crisis, our power is irreplaceable — and we want nothing more than to replace it.”

Is Gerson just making excuses for the woeful performance of his boss’ latest Ameican-led “exertion,” as he calls it, in Iraq? Or does he really believe that a unilateral, American-lead approach to international problem solving (let’s face it the coalition of the willing doesn’t factor much into this equation) is the only viable tool in the chest? Luckily, none of the three candidates, at least at this point, have publically endorsed unilateralism. But “you just wait,” says Gerson…

On a side note: While Gerson’s focus as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations is foreign policy, his regular Washington Post columns can’t seem to stay out of Presidential campaign politics. In this piece, Gerson argues that McCain can learn something about “compassionate conservativism” from the British conservative party, the Tories. And in this piece he claims Obama’s famed race speech “fell short” because it “did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor.”

Based on his commentary in the Post Gerson doesn’t appear to be enamored with Senator McCain. Perhaps McCain is the kind of Republican Gerson argued in his October 2007 book Heroic Conservativism deserves to fail for not embracing “America’s ideals?” He certainly puts more effort into critiquing Senator Obama than Senator Clinton—which is actually more of a backhanded compliment for Obama than a respite from Republican attacks for Clinton.

One thing is for sure: a former Presidential speechwriter with a twice-weekly column in one of the most widely-read and respected papers in America holds a huge amount of power in shaping the debate about the Presidential campaign. It might be worth keeping an eye on what Gerson has to say as the so-called “total war” between the presidential candidates to define a foreign policy platform marches on.

This blog previously discussed Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s preferred US Presidential candidate.

Now, while presidential elections are underway in Iran and in the US (albeit with an election day much further down the road), and while these countries’ governments clash on the international political stage, who do the Iranian public want to see in the Oval office come January?

A Financial Times correspondent based in Tehran investigates:

“Iran arguably has the most to gain from a Democratic victory: the Bush administration has targeted Tehran’s authorities, instigating a financial crackdown aimed at shutting them out of the international banking system, and the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is also considered an Iran hawk.

“The Democrats are much better than the Republicans – they have a softer policy towards Iran and they are more rational,” says Reza, a middle-aged man selling leather belts in the bazaar who like most Iranians did not want to give his full name because of sensitivities about political debate. “But the Republicans are all liars. They said they were bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq, but all they brought was death.”

I am sure Senator McCain’s adaptation of the Beach Boys hit “Barbara Ann” to jokingly sing “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran” at a fundraiser last year didn’t woo Iranians into his camp.

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian-born fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, suggests that Iranian support for a Democratic candidate is indicative of a wider change in Iranian views of the US.

“Many Iranians have long admired the US for its culture, wealth and freedom. Even as recently as 2003, there was a great deal of romanticism about the US. But the last four years of carnage and chaos in Iraq, and the whole US vision for the Middle East, seems to have changed that. There is now a great deal of skepticism about the US,” he says.

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 the allure of American society (as well as an escape from war with Iraq), has drawn Iranians to American shores. The 2000 census estimates the number of Iranians in the United States at 330,000, more than half of them living in California. Which candidate do these Iranian-Americans support?

Omid Memarian, peace fellow at the University of California, Berkeley offers this analysis for IPS, titled “Iranian-Americans Seek Least-Hawkish Candidate.”

He explains “Jaded toward their government back home and cynical of the current U.S. administration and the Republicans they historically supported, a new generation of Iranian-Americans appears to be looking to Barack Obama to bring about change, especially with regards to U.S. foreign policy toward Iran.”

Trita Parsi, director of National Iranian American Council, a national institute based in Washington, told Memarian: “We are witnessing a rather stark shift in the Iranian-American community. The Republican Party has lost much support in the community, and it doesn’t help that McCain is the likely Republican candidate, mindful of his singing about bombing Iran. This breaks a pattern in which the community has tended to support the Republican Party for fiscal reasons.”

Now Parsi is giving his followers a reason not to vote for another Presidential contender, Hillary Clinton. The group issued this press release today, targeting the Senator for her remarks on Good Morning America today stating that the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel.

Looks like US-Iranian relations will be one to watch in the coming years. Just like Iranians are paying attention to our Presidential race, we can keep an eye out for the results of Iran’s parliamentary elections coming up this Friday.

We may be witnessing the most unusual overseas public affairs climate for the United States in the modern era. One the one hand, public opinion regarding the United States is as low as at any time since the beginning of modern polling. On the other, there appears to be an unprecedented level of international interest in and enthusiasm for the U.S. election contest now underway. In particular, the prospect that Barack Obama might emerge as the next U.S. President has captured the imagination of foreign audiences in a remarkable way, as many of the posts on this blog illustrate.

But what if Obama does not win? What if John McCain, after all, in a free and fair election, is the popular choice? Richard Cohen’s recent article in the International Herald Tribune reminds us that McCain, too, has his supporters overseas. McCain’s Los Angeles World Affairs Council speech included an eloquent call for dialogue with countries and peoples around the world that is fairly unusual for Washington these days. Might McCain — and the U.S. — be given the benefit of the doubt if Americans should turn to him to find a way forward on Iraq and other problems?

There are a number of indicators that suggest this might indeed be the case.

First, most anti-Americanism is focused on the person of George W. Bush. Any new U.S. President who promises a new spirit of cooperation with the world will be listened to.

(The only major country where McCain’s rise would evoke an immediate, negative response is probably Russia. McCain has been particularly scornful of Putin and it appears that Putin is likely to remain Russia’s most influential political figure.)

Second, even if McCain wins the Presidency, it is highly likely that Democrats will control both Houses of Congress, probably with majorities sufficient to override Presidential vetoes. The only way for him to govern effectively will be through a more bipartisan approach — including foreign policy.

Third, McCain has distanced himself from the Bush Administration on climate change. The Bush Administration’s refusal to take a leadership role internationally on this issue has been exceptionally damaging to perceptions of the United States.
Fourth, the challenge of dealing with the war in Iraq will force McCain toward greater realism and multilateralism in dealing with other world trouble spots.

Finally, it appears that whoever becomes the next U.S. President will begin to restore America’s public diplomacy programs overseas. All three candidates — including McCain — have remarked repeatedly on the decline of American international prestige and the need to do something about it. Public diplomacy programs such as the ones now conducted by the U.S. State Department can’t reverse the trend alone, but are overdue for more support and will likely get it.

America’s marathon electoral process — contentious, expensive, but ultimately public and democratic — is the first step in repairing the U.S. image overseas. The steps that follow will depend on who is elected the 44th President. But any one of the three candidates, based on their campaigns and actions so far, stands a good chance of enjoying the world’s support at the outset.

Last week American Abroad Media the American University, and WAMU (the Washington, DC NPR radio affiliate) arranged a match-up between the three US Presidential campaigns’ foreign policy advisors. Up for debate: The United States’ standing in the world. More specifically, how would each advisor’s boss raise the US image out of the doldrums if he or she were elected President?

In Clinton’s corner: Lee Feinstein (seated on the left), the campaign’s National Security Director. An international lawyer, by trade, Feinstein left his job as a Senior Fellow the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as an advisor to the Kerry Campaign and as the Principal Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the Clinton administration.

In McCain’s corner: John Lehman (in the middle, sandwiched by democrats), the Foreign and Defense Policy Advisor for the campaign. Lehman served as Navy Secretary under Reagan, as a staff member to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council, and more recently as a member of the 9/11 Commission. Currently Lehman is Chairman of J.F. Lehman & Company, a private equity investment firm. In Obama’s corner: Richard Danzig (seated at right), the campaign’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor. Danzig served as Navy Secretary in the Clinton administration. A biological terrorism consultant, Danzig is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kojo Nnamdi, co-host of the evening’s program, started off the discussion by diagnosing the US’ image problem. It’s bad, folks. How will the next President turn it around?

Danzig and Feinstein recognized the gravity of the problem and were eloquent in their positivity for ameliorating it (not surprisingly Danzig threw the word “hope” into his response; I think he learned it from his boss).

What was surprising was Lehman’s cautious response: “we need to be concerned [about American’s image problem] but … since World War II we’ve never been terribly popular, [there’s been] a lot of envy and hidden admiration, but it’s not the role of the leading [global] power to win popularity contests…” He said the Iraq war blunders “lost the admiration of fair minded people around the world. We need to win that back. We will never win a beauty contest across the world—there are too many people that envy us, dislike what we stand for, so we shouldn’t be trying to please everyone, we should be trying to please the people who count.”

I wonder who doesn’t “count?”

I guess those Republicans weary of supporting McCain because they feel he is not conservative enough can rest assured that, if elected, he will continue the previous administration’s standard “they hate us because of our freedoms” approach to the US credibility problem.

Feinstein stepped in to explain why it’s important that the US be “liked:”

“The way you’re viewed today is important because of the kinds of challenges we’re facing right now. We’re more powerful than all other countries… but we are fighting two ground wars… and a resurgent Al Qaeda… our closes friends in Europe who are increasingly alienated from us. It actually really matters that we have a reputation around the world because we cannot address these problems on our own.”

I guess it’s not surprising that a Navy Secretary dismiss the importance of soft power. But wait, Danzig was a Navy Secretary too, and he get’s it. He gave a practical example of how negative views of the US interfere with our ability to pursue national interests:

“We are engaged in trying to get our NATO allies to provide more support in Afghanistan. That would make our mission more effective and would reduce the demand for American troops. The German government might be sympathetic to that, but the support for America in Germany is about 30%. That has huge practical consequences for the support we can enlist [for the mission]. We find in our ability to deal with terrorism is that the wellspring of this in part is hatred of America. To the degree that we don’t encourage positive attitudes toward America we pay real prices.”

The evening continued with insightful analyses and details about each candidates foreign policies. I highly recommend giving this program a listen.

I stumbled upon a website called “The World Wants Obama,” dedicated to documenting evidence of Senator Obama’s support abroad (the group is also extensively on Facebook and YouTube).

The group’s manifesto is worth reading:

“Although Americans have done many positive things around the world, the US government - once the champion of anti-colonialism and self-determination - has often appeared to be an arrogant bully, waging war and pursuing its own interests at the expense of others. President Bush has taken this to extremes, but the general policy was little better under his predecessors, for example Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on Iraq for all eight years of his presidency, against the wishes of the vast majority of UN countries, causing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

However, Senator Obama looks different, he sounds different and millions of non-Americans believe he will act differently. We cannot vote in the 2008 US elections, but if we could we’d back Obama. We may not agree with all his current policies, and we understand that he will face difficult choices and compromises when he is in office. However we trust he will do his best because he has demonstrated strong principles and a willingness to listen and engage constructively, even with countries that have been seen as America’s enemies. We want an America that lives up to the principles it preaches, listens rather than lectures, conserves rather than consumes, makes peace rather than war and uses its influence positively in the world…”

The site’s blogroll points out a bunch of international Obama fan clubs (like this one), immigrant communities in the US for Obama (like this one).

The group sought to investigate whether Obama’s candidacy was having the effect of improving the US’ image abroad. The polls they cite—surprise, surprise—all show Obama as the preferred candidate in Sweden, Poland, the UK, Russia, Japan, Brail, Iraq, Switzerland, France, and Germany. One of the group’s members, who is based in London, tells me they didn’t filter the polls they cite, all the results just turned out to favor Obama. (It’s important to note that most of the polls they cite were not conducted using representative samples, so their results can not be generalized to the nation’s wider population).

Nevertheless, an annual global poll conducted by the BBC World Service found that, compared to years past, global views of the US are becoming more positive. It’s hard to know whether that’s due to the coming change in leadership, but lead investigator of the poll, Steven Kull, suggests so:

“It may be that as the US approaches a new presidential election, views of the US are being mitigated by hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular in the world.”

Final note: For the sake of balanced blogging, if anyone knows of a similar website or group supporting Senators Clinton or McCain, please let me know.