Karen Hughes AWOL?
Last year Karen Hughes assumed the office of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. At the time of her appointment, the Christian Science Monitor said, “Karen Hughes would have some advantages her predecessors lacked. As one of Bush’s closest advisers, even after returning to Texas in 2002, she can pick up the phone and get him engaged. In addition, public diplomacy - communicating what the administration calls ‘American policies and values’ - is a top concern.” With the current conflict in Lebanon inflaming passions across the Middle East, one would think that she would be incredibly busy right now. But after doing a thorough Google News search, I found little sign of her, or of any US public diplomacy in the Arab world.
According to Professor Marc Lynch, who regularly monitors Al Jazeera and other Arab news networks, there has been only one appearance by a person from the State Dept on an Arab news show since Israel began air strikes on Lebanon. But that was over a week ago:
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much follow-up on the one State Department guest I saw on an al-Jazeera program a few days ago… the Bush administration seems largely absent from the al-Jazeera universe, by its choice, much as it seems largely absent from the events themselves. …I’m pretty sure that al-Jazeera asked for an American to come and discuss Rice’s remarks, and didn’t get one. Whether Karen Hughes can’t figure out the urgency of getting someone on this kind of program - arguing about American policy in front of far and away the largest possible Arab audience - or just doesn’t have the clout to persuade anyone to do it, she should probably just quit on Monday…. this sort of thing defines “failure”.
I’ve always been an advocate of public diplomacy, but let’s be real: no public diplomacy in the world could overcome the fiasco which is America’s policy. But even now I think that an actual attempt to explain America’s position to the Arab media might have both made some slight difference in shaping Arab arguments and given American officials a stronger sense of how their rhetoric was playing in the Arab world. That feedback might have helped Rice avoid her steady string of disasters in the region, including her expressed surprise at the extent of destruction in Beirut and her spectacularly ill-considered formulation of the violence giving birth to a new Middle East (no single American remark thus far has earned more enraged scorn). But the Bush administration has completely punted on public diplomacy, demonstrating absolute contempt for Arab attitudes - it didn’t even send officials on to relatively friendly environments like al-Arabiya - and now it’s far too late. “Winning Arab and Muslim hearts and minds” has gone on the trash heap alongside “American promotion of Arab democracy” for the foreseeable future. If the Bush administration has any alternative grand strategy in mind, it’s carefully concealing its hand.
In a brief article in U.S. News and World Report last month, it was reported that Hughes “has won points for crafting a Rapid Response Unit, designed to help U.S. officials abroad respond to the day’s news… But critics say the effort is typical of Hughes’s quick-hit, political campaignlike approach to what is a years-long ideological struggle.” As Dr. Lynch said, no amount of public diplomacy could overcome the reality of US (in)actions in the current crisis. But it is nonetheless remarkable that there no evident plan from Hughes - not even a “quick-hit” one - to even try to put a good face on it for the many millions in the Arab Middle East TV audience.
