By Patricia H. Kushlis
I've been trying to decide how to comment and report on last week's BloggersRoundtable with State's Under Secretary Glassman for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in which I participated. I note that several of my colleagues have been far faster off the mark than I have been - but I like to let things percolate for awhile before writing and decided that was how I would approach the Round Table as well.
Maybe it's our nearly heavenly altitude here in Northern New Mexico or maybe it's just that I've been preoccupied with a number of other activities - including political (we're a swing and a bellwether state) - that have been occupying my mind.
Let me preface this post, however, by saying that I applaud the Under Secretary for his willingness to spend time with a number of us who write on public diplomacy issues. It's a new approach to public affairs from the State Department. It was also something unthinkable under his predecessors who saw public affairs and public relations as a one-way, my way or the highway, street. It's too bad it didn't happen much earlier - as Bloggers Round Tables did at the Pentagon - but then that, unfortunately, has been too much of my experience with the State Department over many years. Maybe it's simply endemic to risk-aversion "traditional" behind-the-curtains diplomacy.
Whatever, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs should engage with the small public diplomacy blogging community (maybe we do make a small difference) and to let that community know the plans and thinking of the Department. It can, and should be, a two way enterprise.
Democracy Video Contest
Frankly, I was unimpressed by the Department's latest public diplomacy initiative - a contest of three-minute videos on democracy because I don't think it has been thought out as well as might be. The good news is that fellow Round Table bloggers asked some of the right questions so that the Department still has time to incorporate them in the proposal. I would only add here that there are ways the US government can ensure that winning videos are shown throughout the US as I think they should be and, if asked, would be quite willing to make a few practical suggestions.
Javanfekr-Digital Outreach Team Internet "Conversation"
What intrigued me the most, however, was the transcript of a conversation that had taken place via Internet between a senior adviser to Iranian President Ali Akhbar Javanfekr and an anonymous individual or individuals in the Department's Digital Outreach Team (DOT). We had been sent the multi-page transcript of the stream-of-consciousness conversation as a part of the invite to participate in the Round Table.
My question to the Under Secretary was what this Internet exchange had to do with the announced Round Table topic for discussion - Iran and its relationship to terrorism directed against the US. What troubled me the most about the ensuing discussion was not that the Under Secretary argued that Iran was a state sponsor of terrorism aimed at the US (maybe if we talked to the Iranians and got our troops out of Iraq it might reduce Iran's interest in sponsoring anti-American terrorism but no one asked me) but that the Under Secretary's Digital Outreach Team had refused to respond to Javanfekr's repeated question "who are you?" and been allowed to get away with it.
In fact, had I had time for a second round of questions/comments I would have suggested to the Under Secretary that the DOT should have responded positively to Javanfekr's question about the individual responder's identity. I note that Matt Armstrong, who also participated in the Round Table, already made this suggestion on his blog. I agree.
Iran is part of the Middle East, after all, and personal relations tend to take on a far higher importance there as well as in much of the rest of the world than in the more impersonal West. Even so, it was always useful to get to know personally the individuals with whom we negotiated - and yes, I was a US government negotiator with the Soviets, the Germans and at a four month European multilateral conference. Getting to know the other negotiators and delegations on a personal basis was imperative to our success.
Before I move on, another aside: as a public diplomacy officer overseas we always engaged both the public and government officials. It was never and should not be an either/or proposition.
Now back to Javanfekr: I would also have suggested that perhaps Glassman himself should have taken advantage of what could have been an opening by proposing an informal, off-the-record meeting between the two of them. That is, if this administration is truly interested in making progress on the nuclear enrichment issue and settling other outstanding problems with the Iranians. Why not? What would have the administration and Glassman to lose? Javanfekr could always have refused - but maybe what he really wanted was a VIP trip to New York and to be treated respectfully. Both can make a difference. Unfortunately, this administration has a habit of thumbing its nose at its adversaries and often to our disadvantage.
Besides, Iran is a very different kettle of fish than its Sunni neighbors and I think it's in our interest to get to know individual government officials as well as the Iranian basketball team if we ever want to get beyond the poisonous impasse that began in 1953.
Agree: Twenty years is too long
Finally, but not least, I think I heard the whisperings of Glassman's interest in resuscitating State Department public diplomacy institutions and their programs that will take less than twenty years to take effect. I couldn't agree more. The major bureau (IIP) responsible for US government information programs abroad has been allowed to whither on the vine under the seven plus years of the Bush administration. Further, far too many of our public diplomacy positions abroad have been left unfilled.
Meanwhile IIP has gone through one downsizing reorganization after another. The skeleton staff is demoralized. I do not think a revitalization of IIP will suddenly improve W's abysmal international poll ratings or that the 9/11 PIPA poll results which show that as many as 36% of the Turkish public believes the US is behind 9/11 will change overnight - but I do think that a revitalized IIP could be far more effective than it now is and its staff far less harried and mistreated.
I also think that fewer of what was once a very professional staff would have retired or left in dismay. When I worked in IIP (or actually the I Bureau and years before in IPS), the staff - both Foreign and Civil Service - was among the best in USIA. It was also among the most flexible and amenable to change. So, in my view, if Glassman does one thing in the few remaining months in his tenure, I hope it relates to revitalizing the information infrastructure both at home and in our Embassies abroad. They need to go hand in hand. This desperately needs to happen - particularly in the challenging new media climate - and fast.
Previous posts on the Bloggers' Round Table with Under Secretary Glassman
Jerry Loftus Avuncular American
Steve Corman COMOPS Journal
Matt Armstrong Mountain Runner
Melinda Brouwer Foreign Policy Blogs
David Axe Wired
Also check John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review for others that I may have missed.