Public Diplomacy

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.

San Franciscans know that their politics are far from the ordinary, and most residents accept and defend their city’s reputation for pushing the limits as an extension of free speech. Yesterday, however, the city had occasion not only to be liberal-minded but also smart. In one of his better decisions (and he’s made several bad ones), Mayor Gavin Newsom yesterday moved the Olympic torch run to a different part of the city from the advertised route. Thousands of demonstrators, as seen here, representing the People’s Republic of China on one side, and anti-Beijing protesters on the other, were given a chance to face each other down and argue throughout most of the afternoon, while the torch bearers ran down an impromptu route miles away. Had Newsom not made this decision, there would almost certainly have been disorder, injury and arrests. And the torch bearers, volunteers innocent of any political agenda, would have been exposed to undue risk.

The way San Francisco handled yesterday’s protests stands in sharp contrast with the way Beijing handles protests in Tibet. If only China would think about this as they fold up their giant red flags for the next running of the Olympic torch. A few more Olympic flags, and a lot fewer Chinese flags, would be a nice touch.

If you were President of Iran, who would you most like in the Oval Office? There is, clearly, much up for discussion: Iraq, nuclear proliferation, economic sanctions, peace in the Middle East, the list goes on.

Last month Iranian President gave us a glimpse of his preferences when he officially retracted his “alleged” support for Barack Obama as President of the US, because he thinks Obama is “unelectable,” presumably due to his race.

From the state-run Iranian news agency IRNA:

(more…)

After five years of conflict, 4,000 U.S. military deaths, $800 billion in military spending, and tattered relations within what once was called the “coalition of the willing,” General David Petraeus told Congress today that the results of the “surge” in Iraq were “fragile and reversible.” His statement, replete with charts, was as candid and direct as that of any U.S. official or political candidate this year in illustrating the dilemma facing the next Administration and the next Congress. Despite what candidates and opinion polls are now saying, beginning a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq without a durable security environment on the ground will provoke widespread misgivings and involve great political risk. Neither the public nor the candidates will want — regardless of what polls say today — to see a difficult situation become a worsened political and humanitarian catastrophe. Debating timetables during a political campaign is one thing, envisioning the real consequences of one’s proposals quite another.

Nothing illustrates this last truth quite so poignantly as the recent PBS “Frontline” documentary, “Bush’s War,” which recounts the last five-plus years of our mismanaged occupation. The portraits that emerge of Cheney and Rumsfeld are particularly damning in showing this duo’s willful push for war and disregard for post-occupation contingency planning. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz — the real architects of U.S. Iraq policy — are seldom heard from now as Petraeus tries admirably to deal with the consequences and Senators McCain, Clinton and Obama try to position themselves politically.

Foreign opinion, like the political situation on the ground in Iraq, is fragile and changeable. Right now the Arab street seems to favor Obama, according to the Economist, while Israelis like McCain. A very broad audience, at home and abroad, must be looking at our candidates with a mixture of expectation and hope. Taking the next steps in Iraq will not be easy.

Last week the online magazine Slate published a series called “Fixing It“—ten articles offering detailed policy prescriptions for the next US president on how to undo what they identify as damage caused by the Bush administration.

Slate asked their international affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan, a former Congressional foreign policy adviser, to give the next president advice on how to fix the US’ current credibility gap.

Kaplan explains that President Bush’s main fault was that he didn’t fully comprehend the realities of the post-Cold War world. He didn’t realize that the absence of two superpowers balancing the international system made allies more important than ever.

Kaplan offers 7 broad steps the next President can take to ameliorate the damage wrought by Bush’s misunderstandings of global power dynamics. As he sees it the next US President must:

First: Travel to all the Middle East countries and leave behind a full-time envoy to the region. Kaplan waxed nostalgic Dennis Ross‘ contributions toward Middle East peace negotiations, a Middle East envoy who served under both Bush Senior and Bill Clinton. In fact, Kaplan’s essay echoes some of the main points of a book himself Ross penned.

Steps two through four deal with the war in Iraq: Withdraw troops from Iraq as quickly as possible while trying to keep the country from “going up in flames;” Keep the violence in Iraq from spreading throughout the region; Engage Iraq’s neighbors (namely Syria) in more direct diplomatic talks.

Five: Talk to Iran, with an “eye toward negotiating a grand bargain.” Although he warns: “This effort may not go anywhere. But Bush’s hostile rhetoric has only bolstered Ahmadinejad’s domestic support. Diplomatic overtures, if made openly and (by all appearances) sincerely, may undermine his resistance to reform.”

Six: Work toward new Pakistani alliances, although he concedes: “In Pakistan, the situation is so fluid and uncertain, it’s hard to know at this point what policies ought to be pursued 10 months from now.”

Seven: (Last but not least!) Pursue Public Diplomacy. Kaplan explains: “What we do sends a more potent signal to the world than the cleverest PR campaign. But once we start doing smarter things, we should also be smart about promoting our efforts.” He suggests resurrecting the US Information Agency (which was merged into the State Department under the Clinton administration), expanding the Foreign Service, training consular officials to treat foreign visitors more courteously at embassies and airports.

Kaplan outlines no small task for the next US president. As a starting point, perhaps it’s worth testing the Presidential candidates on their understanding of the current character of the international system. If, as Kaplan claims, Bush’s misunderstandings fundamentally threw Bush’s foreign policy off the mark, perhaps now might be the right time to ask each candidate to flesh out their choice theory of contemporary international relations.