In a very laudable initiative, the US State Department's Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy James Glassman engaged with bloggers the other day (I was invited, but the conference call machinery didn't succeed in reaching me in Brussels). The exchange has been covered by others, notably Matt Armstrong of "Mountain Runner," who participated. The transcript is here.
Prior to the round table, Glassman's office had sent invitees a link to a fascinating exchange between an anonymous State Department person (or persons) from the "Digital Outreach Team," and Ali Akbar Javanfekr, media adviser to Iranian President Ahmadinejad. As Undersecretary Glassman had told the blogger round table, "we want to be a facilitator, a convener; we want to bring people together." A noble cause, not terribly different from a Clinton era appointee I once worked for, who was always trying to "triangulate" people from different spheres.
In the case of the State Department - Iranian Presidency dialogue-by-blog, it was more a question of trading accusations. Mostly cool and polite in the case of the State team, which seemed to increasingly infuriate the Iranian, who was troubled by the lopsided dialogue with nameless American counterpart(s). When the State person says, "the United States government does not have any blood feuds with the people of any other nation, nor is it in the nature of American society to hold grudges against others," that may sound reasonable in a Stateside context. Iranians and other Muslims might question the sentiment, especially given calls in some American quarters for "crusade" and "battling Islamo-fascism" in misplaced efforts after September 11, 2001. To much of the world, it does indeed sound like the US has a blood feud going.
Pat Kushlis of Whirled View, who participated in the Glassman round table, puts her finger on part of the "dialogue" problem in her post on the latest world polls showing massive distrust of the United States. When the messenger represents a country - or an Administration - that is almost universally disrespected, it is very difficult to "bring people together."
Important as public diplomacy is, of "being a facilitator, bringing people together," it's hard when your country is not a neutral party. Good offices, shuttle diplomacy, sharing, caring - all the touchy feely sounding accouterments of soft power - come up against the hard steel of the US image in the world. Matt Armstrong, who speaks of undoing "the voluntary militarization of public diplomacy by the Bush Administration" is on the right track. So too is Undersecretary Glassman, who gets points for attempting a mighty hard task: convincing the world, despite much evidence to the contrary, that America wants to listen.
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