Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA AND THE LONG WAR - Year 8 - 2009
Outgoing State Dept. Official Offers Diplomatic Advice by A Harder " Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 AROUND D.C., THE OUT CROWD : Wednesday, February 4, 2009 2:10 PM Q&A: Outgoing State Dept. Official Offers Diplomatic Advice By AMY HARDER At the United States Institute for Peace conference on media and diplomacy Tuesday, NationalJournal.com was able to speak for a few minutes with James Glassman, who succeeded Karen Hughes as undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs in the last year of the Bush administration. Glassman discussed the qualities his own yet-to-be-named successor should possess and how President Obama can use the media to improve relations with the Middle East. Edited excerpts follow: NJ: What can the Obama administration do to enhance public diplomacy through new media and the Internet? Glassman: Let me tell you the most important thing it should do. The administration needs to appoint a successor to me... who has an orientation toward national security, not an orientation toward public relations. That's an imperative. What I dread, what I'm really worried about, is appointing somebody who essentially sees his or her job as an image-maker. That would be a huge mistake. NJ: Does this relate to the notion put forth in the [USIP] panel discussion that, when it comes to public diplomacy, action speaks louder than words? Glassman: It's more than that. It's really a conception of the job as -- not as necessarily making everyone love us, but a conception of the job that is to try to achieve foreign policy goals of the United States in a sophisticated way, especially involving other parts of government, and that's what we tried to do. When I came to the job, or before I came to the job, I didn't understand it in that way. I am worried that the administration, for all its talk about the importance of public diplomacy in a broader sense, will see it in a narrow sense as being brand-building, image-building. So the person who gets appointed undersecretary of state of public diplomacy, whoever that is, that person's background and outlook -- that's going to tell you a lot about how truly serious this administration is. So far, we haven't seen much, and I think that's a mistake, too. They should have appointed somebody quickly. NJ: Do you think your successor should have a background in national security? Glassman: Not necessarily. It would be good if the person had background in national security. But, let me say, I did not, and yet I learned it and got deeply involved in it. I'm saying that this is a national security job; it's not a PR job. Certainly somebody who's got a background in national security and communications would be ideal, but certainly somebody like me who didn't have a national security background but understood the job in that way, that would be fine as well. NJ: Do you think Obama's latest moves to reach out to the Muslim world -- appearing on Arab TV, for instance -- resonate more permanently with Muslims than just a passing PR stint? Glassman: They absolutely resonate. I think it's a very good idea. He needs to understand, as I'm sure he does, that his deeds -- that is to say his policy [in the Middle East] -- have much more of an impact than the words that he uses on Al Arabiya. But I think it was very, very good that he appeared on Al Arabiya, and I suggested publicly that that should only be the beginning. I would love to see him go on Voice of America, which broadcasts on television seven hours a day into Iran. If we're ever going to get anything done in official diplomacy in Iran, we need to do more connecting with the Iranian people -- who, by the way, like us. The idea of a president using these tools is a very good one. Let me also add, in defense of the previous administration, that President Obama is not the first president to appear on Al Arabiya. President Bush appeared several times going all the way back to 2004. He's also talked directly to the Iranian people a year ago on New Year's, and so this is nothing new. But people see it as a fresh start, the world sees it as a fresh start. The world is paying much more attention, so he's going to get much more bang for the buck than Bush ever got. NJ: Would it be accurate to say that you think your successor should then capitalize on the messages and symbolic moves by Obama in a more concrete manner? Glassman: Yeah. The president is the best public diplomat that America has, and it's clear that President Obama understands that. But public diplomacy is a lot more than the president doing interviews. But yes, anybody who has this role should be trying to get President Obama to participate. He's very good at it. One of the things I tried to do is get President Bush to appear on a program called "Roundtable With You," which is a VOA call-in show.... Americans would be stunned that this exists. Live, every day from a studio not very far from here, you have dozens of Iranians -- hundreds of Iranians -- calling in to a live one-hour talk show, and it has many public officials appear, and think-tank people and so forth. I encouraged President Bush to appear on that, and maybe that's really not quite his medium. But, it would be really great if President Obama appeared on it and fielded questions from actual Iranians from Tehran. 
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