U.S. Diplomacy

The fourth round of talks between Iran and the United States concerning security issues in Iraq have been postponed, at the behest of Iran.

“It had originally been slated for December 18 with Iraqi authorities touting it as a ‘technical meeting’ at experts level rather than a meeting of ambassadors.

However it was postponed, again at the request of Iran. Late January, Iranian officials said they had ’some concerns’ about the next round of discussions but did not elaborate.

The technical committee is made up of security and military experts as well as diplomats. It focuses on security rather than political issues.

Iran and the United States held three rounds of talks over Iraq last year amid mutual distrust.”

Sean McCormack, Spokesman for the State Department,  elaborated briefly during a press conference yesterday:

“At the moment, I don’t think there’s agreement on the date. The Iranians recently came back to us via the Iraqis, or came back to the Iraqis and saying that the tentative agreement on a date for getting together to talk about security issues in Iraq didn’t work for them. Okay. I can’t tell you the reasons behind that or what their, you know, why they decided to cancel the tentative meeting that was put together. You know, quite clearly, they thought their people had better things to do, I suppose.

We are prepared to continue to use this particular channel for a constructive exchange on issues related to Iraq and Iraq security. But you’ll have to ask the Iranian Government why it is that they decided not to participate in the meeting at this time.”

Yesterday I attended the National Summit on Citizen Diplomacy in Washington, DC, put on by the US Center for Citizen Diplomacy and the Coalition for Citizen Diplomacy. For those new to the concept, citizen diplomats are unofficial ambassadors who either participate in exchange programs overseas or host and interact with international exchange program participants in the United States. You can view the Coalition’s annual report here.

The opening plenary session included a presentation by Dick Martin, former executive vice president of public relations, employee communications and brand management for AT&T and author of “Rebuilding Brand America.” Click here to visit a page of the American Marketing Association website that hosts a podcast of an interview with the author.

Martin began his presentation by admitting he is not a foreign policy expert—and in fact it is his outsider perspective that is so valuable. In a nutshell, he applies his 30 years of experience in the advertising world to the problem of America’s recent credibility issue.

The use of branding and marketiung techniques in public diplomacy is controversial [see this Boston Globe article for a synthesis of some criticism for the practice]. I must admit I have also been skeptical about the marketing world’s potential for facilitating and informing US public diplomacy efforts. But to my surprise Martin showed his audience that, in fact, Madison Avenue can teach us a thing or two about public diplomacy.

His presentation began with an “Introduction to Branding 101.” He explained that a brand offers consumers a promise about a given product. As people come to trust the brand to deliver on its promise, publics connect with the brand on a deep, emotional level. They begin to trust that the product’s performance will match the promises made by the brand.

He used the example of Osama Bin Laden’s highly successful brand. Bin Laden connects with his followers on a deep emotional level and he keeps his promises consistently, delivering resistance against the United States and acts of terror directed at its public and its allies.

America, the nation, is also a brand. It represents the promise that it pledges to its citizens: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This promise is also embodied in US foreign policies and communicated to publics around the world verbally through government statements and through our actions (i.e.military action,  foreign aid, democracy promotion, global health programs, cultural exchanges, etc.). The promise that “Brand America” represents, says Martin, exists in hearts and minds around the world.

But America the brand is suffering in the eyes of the global public. Positive views of the US government are steadily plummeting as well as views of the US public—attitudes that were, until recently,  compartmentalized separate from views of the government.

Martin says the failure of brand America lies in the fact that so because America is not delivering on its promise: our deeds are not matching our values. Even though the US spends comparatively little on public diplomacy activities Martin emphasized that an increase in the US public diplomacy budget will not fix America’s brand problem. He said “it’s like increasing your ad budget without ensuring that your product delivers on its promise. “

On a more hopeful note, Martin explained that when the US government demonstrates that it cares about our global compatriots, it connects with others emotionally, and builds a more positive brand image. He cited polling data in Indonesia that showed a bump in positive attitudes toward the US immediately after the US reaction to the Tsunami in December 2003 (charitable donations, food and medical aid). But the positive effect of these donations has worn off lumping as American aid to the country has decreased.

Martin suggested that the way to rebuild “brand America” is to reconnect foreign audiences with the values we promise to global audiences. But he cautioned that changes in reputation happens incrementally. Restoring trust is difficult because it is not an entirely rational process; people see and understand others through what he called “the lenses of their emotions.” He warned that America’s reputation “cannot be rebuilt slowly on donated bags of rice.” He highlighted the work of citizen diplomacy and international exchange programs as doing the “hand-to-hand” work essential to the task of restoring the global public’s trust in the United States.

But in his book Martin invests more confidence in the American business community than citizen diplomats to help restore American’s image. He turns America’s brand problem into a problem for multinationals–not just for our government–by focusing on what the international business community can do to help restore American’s image around the world. He even contends that US business can be more effective than government in rebuilding Brand America. I wouldn’t go that far, but Martin does establish an important link between public diplomacy and the American multinational business community.

Overall Martin’s presentation showed that the marketing approach to public diplomacy offers a simplistic yet illustrative equation for evaluating the effectiveness of US public diplomacy efforts. If the product is broken, no amount of advertising dollars can make it sell. The foundation of Martin’s argument, although he only eluded to it in his presentation, is that US foreign policy is not performing, and therefore the American brand is suffering as a consequence. This argument is quite similar to that originally published by British “nation-branding” gurus Simon Anholt and Jeremy Hildreth in “Brand America: The Mother of All Brands” [Cyan, 2004]).

I don’t expect the silver bullet for America’s credibility gap to come from the business world. But we should keep these lessons mind as we the pundits, journalists, policy makers and taxpayers scratch our heads and wonder why our investments in public diplomacy haven’t delivered the returns we expected.

The United Nations has asked the United States for $265 million for humanitarian relief to Iraqis. The aid would be allocated towards food, health, education, water and sanitation, housing and shelter, and protection.

“Nearly five years of war have badly worsened chronic problems in Iraq. UNAMI said an estimated 4 million people need basic food assistance. And at least 2.4 million people inside Iraq are believed to have been displaced from their homes.”

On a related note, Angelina Jolie, long known for her refugee work in Darfur, has recently focused her attention upon Iraqi refugees and humanitarian relief.
“The US embassy said Jolie traveled to Baghdad with Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky ‘to discuss US humanitarian relief efforts for internally displaced persons and conflict victims.’

The trip, a statement said, is a follow-up to a visit by Jolie to the region six months ago and marks a ‘mission to support and implement joint solutions to assist Iraqi’s displaced population.’

Jolie also met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Immigration and Refugees Minister Abdel Samad Rahman Sultan.

She had lunch with American troops serving in Iraq after earlier meeting their top commander, General David Petraeus.

The actress also held talks in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone with UN head of mission Staffan di Mistura and met a group of internally displaced people.”

Does Jolie have any influence and are her meetings with al-Maliki, Petraeus, and UN officials newsworthy? Perhaps they were answering a question posed by Dan Drezner in the National Interest, “Who would you rather sit next to at your next Council on Foreign Relations roundtable: Henry Kissinger or Angelina Jolie?”

Her star power can potentially draw attention to issues citizens in the United States and other countries might gloss over if it were a State Department official conducting a press conference. Jolie’s recent trip to Iraq was not her first. In 2007, she met with 1,200 Iraqis outside the border with Syria. Following the meeting, Jolie launched a $150 million appeal by UNICEF to help educate one million children affected by war.

I’ve yet to read if Jolie’s meetings in Iraq last week were in connection to the recent UN request, however this blogger wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

UPDATE: A reader, Carol, points out that Jolie’s trip to Iraq was part of a State Department mission. See Carol’s comment below for more.

The Voice of America reported yesterday on the Department of Defense’s plans for its U.S. Africa command, or AFRICOM.

While NPR reports that the idea to create the new command was “has kicked around the halls of the Pentagon for more than a decade,” the command was recently created so that US-Africa military liaisons be united under one command, as opposed to three in the past (U.S. Central Command, Pacific Command, European Command).

The unification of these units into a single command was intended to give it more focus, and the ability to act more nimbly to events that transpire on the continent, says Charles Kosak, Director of African Affairs in the office of the secretary of defense, in an interview with VOA.

VOA reports that the Africa Command is scheduled to reach full operational status about October of this year, when a full complement of 1,300 personnel will be in place at its interim headquarters at in Stuttgart, Germany. The Defense Department hopes eventually to have regional offices in various parts of Africa, but no new military bases are reported to be a part of the command.

The leaders of the new command, who met at a conference at the University of Southern California on Friday, explained that AFRICOM was designed with an understanding of the ties between security, development and diplomacy,” and therefore “will not take a leading role in African security,” but will “offer support to African governments and regional organizations.”

The Defense Department-run website for AFRICOM desribes it as “a different kind of command” that “reflects a much more integrated staff structure, one that includes significant management and staff representation by Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other U.S. government agencies involved in Africa. The command will also seek to incorporate partner nations and humanitarian organizations, from Africa and elsewhere, to work alongside the U.S. staff on common approaches to shared interests.”Kosak added in the VOA report that the integration of staff structure is intended “simply to have these skill sets in the command so that the USAID rep[resentative] can help the Department of Defense, can help Africa Command, work better with USAID, with its multitude of programs on the continent.”

This discussion comes amid concerns more broadly that the Department of Defense has began to overstep its mandate and take on more diplomatic and development work usually left to the State Department and USAID.

Nicole Lee of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group, expressed at the USC conference a concern that the restructuring of AFRICOM and its mandate signals a shift in US-African relations away from traditional diplomacy. According to the VOA, she said: “I think the biggest concern with AFRICOM is no one really is clear on what exactly it’s going to do. When the Defense Department is asked regarding the issues that AFRICOM is going to deal with, it sounds a lot like what the State Department is supposed to be involved with and leading on.”

Jendayi Frazer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs testified her support for the creation of AFRICOM before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa in August of 2007. According to her testimony it would seem like things between Defense and State on the issue of AFRICOM were getting off to a great start:

“From the inception of AFRICOM, the State Department has been closely involved in the planning process, beginning last fall when the Department of Defense established its AFRICOM Implementation Planning Team. Both the Bureau of African Affairs and the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs assigned senior officers to this planning team, working with Department of Defense officials full time for many weeks to address the myriad of issues that arise when this type of major inter-agency collaboration is envisioned. Several other State Department bureaus also had officers participating, bringing functional expertise to key portions of the planning process. This process has largely occurred in an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration, with both Departments sensitive to the requirements and concerns of the other. The result, to date, is the development of a framework that is supportive of both U.S foreign policy interests as well our regional security objectives.”

She closed her remarks by saying “The Department of State views the creation of AFRICOM as a major advancement in our comprehensive Africa policy and engagement strategy. It is the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration. It is, in many ways the marriage of State’s expertise and authorities with the military’s resources and security experience, and we are excited about it. I would be glad to take any questions that the committee might have.”

But according to reporting back in November by the Associated Press, there has been criticism of AFRICOM coming from “within the U.S. government itself, notably from State Department officials.”

Kurt Shillinger, an analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told the Associated Press: “Some officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development worry their humanitarian programs could be “stigmatized” by direct links with the military, which has melded aid programs with combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan- wars unpopular in most of Africa.”

A/S Frazer was the keynote speaker at the USC conference on Friday. We will keep our eyes peeled for a transcript of her remarks either posted on the USC or State Department site. In the meantime, those of you looking to learn more about AFRICOM can look here:

• “Does Africa Need AFRICOM?” blog post on Nachrichten Heute
• An article titled U.S. Africa Command: A New Strategic Paradigm? published in January of 2008 in Military Review.
• An article titled “Africa’s Security Challenges and Rising Strategic Significance” published in Strategic Insights in January of 2007.
  
• Advanced Questions for General William E. “Kip” Ward, U.S. Army Nominee for Commander, U.S. Africa Command at a Senate Committee on Armed Services testimony.

This week, Defense Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Rice combined efforts on improving the dampening European support for NATO troops in Afghanistan. Gates warned the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security, and others who are not.” He continued, “it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps get even worse.” Following his testimony, Gates traveled to Lithuania, where he’s presently meeting with NATO defense ministers, looking to pressure European allies on the troop support issue.

Perhaps the impetus for the worrisome tone was Germany’s rejection of a U.S. request for more troops. Compounding the problem, Canada issued an ultimatum that it would withdraw troops if they did not receive reinforcement from NATO allies.

While ally support is fading from Germany, France is looked at to pick up the slack. “A reversal of France’s refusal to deploy combat units to the southern front-lines would ease tensions within NATO…France is to meet a Canadian delegation Friday [today] on Ottawa’s appeal for 1,000 extra troops to support its beleaguered force in volatile Kandahar province.”

Secretary Rice made a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday. While Gates is meeting with defense ministers in Lithuania, Rice also publicly urged NATO members to increase troop support. Additionally, she met with President Karzai to discuss a special envoy who could represent the numerous countries involved in the effort. “There are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. I can understand why there could be confusion, and we owe it to President Karzai to have an effective international coordinator.”

Analysis on this subject can be tricky. Are alliances with our European friends fracturing for the long-term, or are they simply growing weary of the Afghanistan counterinsurgency? Certainly, we must be mindful of the political context in each country. It may be helpful to remind NATO members that the stabilization of Afghanistan is imperative for each country and cite specific reasons. Maintaining an alliance can be a juggling act. However, the United States should not feel daunted, reminding allies about the nature of the threat and persuading them to stay in the fight is a necessary process in a multilateral war. We should be grateful we have the opportunity to fall back on other resources, unlike in Iraq.

When the Rafah border was broken open by Hamas, food and goods were certainly not the only items brought back into the Gaza Strip. It’s more than likely that weapons, normally snuck into the territory through underground tunnels, were also brought over. This is particularly troubling after Hamas claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Dimona, which killed one elderly woman and injured eleven others.

Suicide bombings in Israel were drastically reduced over the last couple of years. In fact, 2007 witnessed but one suicide bombing, a significant statistic. While critics might argue tactics shifted towards launching Qassam rockets into Israel as a mean of fighting the occupation, I would counter that suicide bombings are deadlier and have a greater psychological effect. To this point, anyone concerned about the peace-process should fear renewed violence and repeated suicide bombing attacks. One may not necessarily be cause for concern, but two would drastically diminish prospects for peace.

The suicide bombing may have been a response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza during January. The ever-increasing tit-for-tat responses can eventually boil over into a much more serious conflict, as has happened before between Israelis and Palestinians. However, my fears may simply be overblown. Hamas is not involved in the peace-process, and negotiations largely concern the West Bank and its citizens.

If one looks at events in two months since the Annapolis Conference, Israel has pursued two tracks. They have bolstered Abbas by continuing negotiations, while maintaining a strong stance against Hamas, as I previously noted the IDF offensive in Gaza. The latter part of the track may inhibit the former. Could Hamas have re-supplied itself with arms while the border with Egypt was open? Could the IDF find itself in another battle in Gaza? Will Hamas retaliate with another suicide bombing? These questions remain worrisome for observers of the peace-process.

Additionally, the events which have transpired in the last few weeks have helped win support for Hamas, although slightly. This survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas’ popularity increased in both the West Bank and Gaza, while Fatah’s popularity slightly dropped. Despite the slight increase in support, the survey also shows that most Palestinians still favor Fatah over Hamas.

Meanwhile, the United States needs to stay focused on the diplomatic track. Now is not the time to step back from the omnipotent final-status issues. That said, if relations deteriorate, and Israel finds itself against a serious challenge (as it has with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 and the second intifada), the United States is inclined to step-back and allow Israel to launch offensives or defend itself. This is a precarious time for the peace-process and it is imperative for the United States to be aware of what’s happening on the ground.

After the gloomy report this blog gave last January that the State Department would be forced to cut its diplomatic posts by 10%, good news comes through the wire:

“Bush Aims To Hire More Diplomats“

February 4, 2008–President Bush wants to hire nearly 1,100 new diplomats to address severe staffing shortages and put the State Department on track to meet an ambitious call to double its size over the next decade, according to administration officials.

The additional positions are part of Bush’s budget for fiscal 2009, which he will submit to Congress today, according to documents described by officials. The spending request is subject to congressional approval.

Bush’s proposal envisions adding 1,076 jobs at the State Department and diplomatic missions overseas in what officials believe would be one of the largest one-year boosts to the ranks of the foreign service.

The department is facing a critical shortage of diplomats, and many embassies are operating at 70 percent of their desired staffing levels. Last fall, the department said 10 percent of vacant positions would have to remain unfilled this year because of a lack of personnel.

The plan includes 450 jobs to free up current diplomats for intensive language and national security training; 350 posts for a new Civilian Stabilization Program, which would work to improve conditions in post-conflict zones; 200 diplomatic security agents; and 50 political advisers for military commands…”

The Details

Out of the $3.1 trillion dollar budget plan, funding for the State department and other international programs would increase $5.4 billion to $38.3 billion, a 16.5% increase from 2008.

Reuters published a list of foreign affairs highlights from the budget proposal:

“* $400 million to help Iraq achieve economic, democratic and political stabilization; and $1.1 billion to help Afghanistan promote economic growth, strengthen its governing institutions, improve access to health care and education and increase democratic governance;

* $830 million to Pakistan to aid security, combat terrorism, promote democracy and further economic development.

* $699 million for U.S. government news and information television, radio and Internet broadcasts overseas with a focus on the Middle East, North Korea, Myanmar, Iran and Cuba;

* $6 billion for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that is expected to spend $30 billion over the next five years to help millions of people affected by the AIDS crisis;

* $550 million for the Merida Initiative to fight drug-trafficking and organized crime in Mexico and Central America;

* $400 million for a new international clean technology fund as part of Bush’s Climate Change Initiative;

* $1.5 billion for U.N. peacekeeping operations including initiatives in Sudan, Congo, Liberia, Lebanon and Haiti. “

FederalTimes.com also offers a summary of the budget’s highlights according to government agency:

“State Department

The State Department’s proposed $5.4 billion increase in discretionary spending would help fund the hiring of an additional 1,524 new employees. New hires would include 300 Foreign Service officers proficient in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Urdu, 200 employees dedicated to working with the Defense Department and other federal agencies to counter major national security threats, 70 employees to improve security at embassies and consulates, and 130 employees to improve security of visas and passports.

And the Agency for International Development wants to add 300 more Foreign Service officers to the thousand or so it now has. Richard Greene, State’s deputy director of U.S. foreign assistance, said AID should have about 2,000 Foreign Service officers by 2011.

“AID’s work force has simply not kept up with its programmatic responsibilities,” Greene said. State would also boost its border security staff by about 10 percent, to total 5,215. The agency plans to hire 300 employees to adjudicate increasing numbers of passport requests and 121 employees to fight passport and visa fraud, and 27 other support positions in fiscal 2009.

The budget calls for $844 million to start building 11 new embassies, including compounds in Kabul, Afghanistan; Bangkok, Thailand; and Krakow, Poland. State has slated $1.8 billion for embassy security, construction and maintenance in fiscal 2009, $364 million more than the previous fiscal year.

State plans to spend $249 million on a new Civilian Stabilization Initiative, an interagency program that would help stabilize countries as the transition from war to peace. The initiative would help develop the rule of law in transitioning countries, as well as help set up police forces, public administration and infrastructure.

The budget also would provide $414 million for information technology such as a messaging and archiving project that aims to consolidate old cables, memoranda and e-mails into a single platform that can be easily accessed around the world. State will also work on content management and electronic medical record systems that can be used worldwide.” 

The State Department published the transcript of a press conference it held on Monday discussing what the budget means for the Department.

The Budget also considerably increases funding for the military. Public Radio International broadcast an interview with New York Times pentagon correspondent Tom Shanker on Monday which sheds some light on the defense portion of the proposal and how it fits into the wider and historical context of government spending.  You can hear that interview by clicking here.

Condi, Our SHEro

While administration officials described “fierce behind-the-scenes battles over spending in the final Bush budget,” the  increase in funding for diplomatic activities was apparently due to persistent lobbying by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Washington Post reports that Secretary Rice “went back three times to the internal budget review board — which includes Vice President Dick Cheney, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and National Economic Council Director Keith Hennessy — to appeal for more funds. In the end, she also spoke directly with Bush to secure an increase of $700 million for the State Department, 6.5 percent over last year’s budget.”

This is a shining example of why it is desirable that the Secretary of State be one who shares a tight bond with the President and his confidants.

We’ll keep our eyes peeled as this budget makes its way through Congress. The budget will, as per usual, spark a partisan showdown on Captiol Hill. The Washington Post reports that the President’s top officials were on Capitol Hill today “defending President Bush’s $3.1 trillion budget plan from complaints by Democrats that it adds almost $800 billion to U.S. debt and doesn’t pay for the war in Iraq.”

Stay tuned, and keep your fingers crossed that Condi can continue to deliver on the State Department’s $38.3 billion dollar question.

On Wednesday of last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard the testimony of three of President Bush’s nominees seeking confirmation to hold State Department positions in the bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  The first to testify was James K. Glassman, whose nomination for Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy was previously discussed in this blog here. A transcript of his prepared testimony can be found here. 

It appears that Glassman has been doing his homework. Toward the end of his testimony he summarizes what he took away from some discussions he had with experts in on global public opinion of the U.S.:  

“1. Animosity toward the United States is real, and it must concern us. 

2. Different countries have different views of the United States. In Africa, Japan, and India, for example, most people favorably disposed toward the United States. In much of Western Europe and nearly all the Arab and Muslim world, they are not.  3. Much of the animosity is not deep. Even people who say they dislike us want to have strong bilateral relations with us, and attitudes are not set in stone. As Secretary Rice said last year, The United States is “still the place where people like to send their kids to school, where people want to start a new life. Sometimes we overstate the degree to which America is not popular, even if sometimes our policies are not.” 

4. The animosity of foreigners has three sources:

a. They understand that we are a powerful nation and will ultimately set policies with our own interests in mind, but they believe we do not listen to them, do not act as a reliable partner, and do not respectfully take their views into account.

b. In the Arab and Muslim world, especially, they have major misconceptions about America, our aims, and our policies. Remember the examples I cited before, such as a belief that we want to supplant Islam with Christianity in the Middle East. c. They disagree with our policies, especially our presence in Iraq and what they see as our bias in the matter of Israel and the Palestinians.

The first two sources of animosity, I believe, we can address effectively through public diplomacy. We can listen better and more respectfully and through exchanges, information programs, and ideological engagement, we can address and rectify the lies and misconceptions. 

As for policy: Edward R. Murrow, when he was USIA director, famously said that public diplomacy should be in on the takeoffs, not just the crash landings. In other words, public diplomacy should have a place at the table, to advise policymakers of the potential reaction of foreign publics to policies. But never, in my view, should global public opinion polls determine the foreign policy of the United States. Can we do a better job explaining our policies? Yes. Will those policies be universally embraced? No. In the early 1980s, the U.S. and our allies agreed on the placement of cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. It was a decision that was aggressively opposed by much of Europe’s public opinion, but it was a policy that helped bring down communism…” 

News reports on his testimony focused on Glassman’s purported plan to counter Islamic extremism’s detrimental effects on the US image abroad with digital media. From the Voice of America:  “Glassman, who has a background in print and electronic media, says he will use the year or so before the end of the Bush administration to focus on leading a war of ideas using new technologies…”  

Glassman says the perception that the US is trying to undermine Islam, which he cites as widespread in the Muslim world, “come[s] directly from what he calls doctrine at the foundation of al-Qaida, and must be fought using the Internet, U.S. government-funded international broadcasting, and educational and cultural exchange programs.”  CNN and others picked up on Glassman’s comment that “our enemies are eating our lunch in terms of getting their messages communicated using ‘digital technology.’” He continued: “It is just plain embarrassing that al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America.” 

Diane Farsetta, Senior Researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy also discussed Glassman’s focus on digital technologies as a public diplomacy tool in a piece for Alternet. 

VOA reports that Glassman fielded some pointed questions from the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked Glassman to comment on criticism the bureau of Public Diplomacy has received for “having a weak communications strategy which obviously raises questions about its ability to meet its important mission.” Glassman responded that “U.S. efforts have suffered from a lack of coordination among government agencies. He pledged to help rebuild a public diplomacy structure [the US Information Agency, or USIA] he says was largely dismantled amid what he calls a bipartisan period of neglect in the 1990s.”  

Also testifying was Goli Ameri, President Bush’s nominee to hold the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). Ameri would replace Dina Habib Powell, who held the position from 2005 until December 2007, when she left the Department to become the Director of Global Corporate Engagement for the Goldman Sachs Group.

   Ameri (seated on the far right), formerly the Department’s Public Delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, spoke of her upbringing in Iran and the impact of her move to the U.S. study at Stanford University. In her testimony she called herself “an American by choice.” 

“[While studying in the US] I learned…the value of freedom and democracy, the fundamentals of critical thinking, the questioning of ideas and a profound sense of empowerment. I learned that in America, there are no constraints to one’s desire to achieve. That it’s ok to be a woman, it’s ok to be an immigrant and most importantly its ok to be a dreamer Where else in the world, would an immigrant, a woman of Iranian heritage be nominated as an Assistant Secretary and have the privilege to sit in front of this distinguished panel?”

In 2004, Ameri ran for Congress in Oregon on the Republican ticket, but lost to Congressman David Wu by a narrow margin.   If confirmed, Ameri pledged to “expand our ‘people to people exchanges’ [diplomatic speak for directly engaging citizens of two different countries in an attempt to build positive relations between the two nations and introduce: (1) More opportunities for engagement with key countries like Iran and North Korea where we seek to better relations between our citizens and (2) Reach out to the more disadvantaged segments of the population around the world. I will encourage more women and girls, to participate in our exchange programs and I would like to make sure that we institutionalize successful and powerful programs like the Middle East Breast Cancer Initiative and the Fortune Women’s Mentorship program.”   Ameri’s nomination caused a negative reaction from some Iran-watchers (see here and here ), but then again so did the nomination of the past Assistant Secretary for ECA, Dina Habib Powell, an Egyptian-American, prompting, among other reactions, this letter to the Washington Post by Arab-American institute President James Zogby. 

The hearing’s final testimony came from David J. Kramer, nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DLR), the bureau that leads U.S. efforts to “promote democracy, protect human rights and international religious freedom, and advance labor rights globally.”  Kramer, currently Deputy Assistant Secretary for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, will be replacing Jonathan D. Farrar who held the position since 2005.  If confirmed, Kramer pledged to “continue to concentrate DRL’s diplomacy and programs on the core components of democracy that must be present in countries around the globe if human rights are to be effectively exercised and protected: (1) free and fair electoral processes, with a level playing field to ensure genuine competition; (2) good governance, with representative, transparent and accountable institutions operating under the rule of law, including independent legislatures and judiciaries; and (3) robust civil societies, including independent media and labor unions.”