From Hollywood to Tehran to Outer Space

Hollywood and Madison Ave.?

Picking up where we left off last week…

The US continues to worry about its image abroad. The latest warning has come from the prestigious New York-based non-governmental Council on Foreign Relations. In a new report, published this week, the Council urges the need to counter growing anti-American sentiment, particularly in Islamic countries.

Last week the House of Representatives approved a bill earmarking $255 million in the next two years to improve US overseas broadcasting. Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the International Relations Committee, sponsored the bill, asking, “How is it that the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue has such trouble promoting a positive image of itself overseas?”.

The Council of Foreign Relations asserts that many countries see the US as “arrogant, self-indulgent, hypocritical, inattentive and unwilling or unable to engage in cross-cultural dialogue.” All this, despite the best efforts of the President to improve his image. After 11 September, the State Department hired former advertising executive Charlotte Beers to sell American values and policies to the Islamic world.

From the War on Terror to steel, from the ICC to Kyoto, from Israel to evil axes, Beer and her colleagues have had their work cut out. As the New York Times pointed out this week, “skeptics say no amount of public relations can compensate for unpopular foreign policies.” The Council report points to independent opinion polls in which more than sixty per cent of people in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (all considered allies of the US) were not exactly fans of the US. Polls in Kuwait, Pakistan and Indonesia show a majority viewing American military action in Afghanistan as morally unjustifiable.

Nevertheless, the Council report recommends “expanding the use of political campaign techniques, including polling, to shape attitudes toward the United States” (NYT). It also suggests the establishing of a White House unit to co-ordinate efforts, to be headed by a senior advisor to the President (Ken Lay?), and the creation of an independent Corporation for Public Diplomacy.

A 35-member panel is credited with writing the report. Authors apparently range from news executives to scholars of the Middle East. Says Peter Peterson, chairman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and investment banker, “The war on terror has made this whole situation far more urgent. If we’re going to fight that war effectively we’ll need the cooperation of a lot of countries.” A stated aim is to help clear the path for an invasion of Iraq.

The White House responded, announcing its intention to create an “Office of Global Communications”. The Office will be up and running by the autumn, and is said not to be treading on the toes of the State Department – which is still charged with “telling America’s story” – but adding “thematic and strategic value”. Really it is an increasing of direct White House power. It will be headed by a “counselor to the president”, and is described by the Washington Post as the “brainchild” of Karen Hughes, the senior advisor to Bush. A senior administration official was quoted as saying, “If you were to ask people representing the government who travel, who serve overseas – even leading Americans – ‘What does America want to say to people in the world? What are the top three points? What is the answer?’ that has to come from the top.”

A tension seems to be building up between the spinners and the advocates of policy change. Beers favours marketing, saying that the administration “can and should do more to educate, and influence the attitudes of, foreign audiences toward our country.” She endorses the views of one ‘Arab American who has closely followed public diplomacy developments’ that “It’s like a campaign. “You’ve got to go after the swing voters.” Graham Fuller, a former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, is not so sure. The Post quotes him at a recent meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, where he warned that “If fundamental policies are seen to be flawed, a prettied-up package will not make a difference.” Fuller said that in all his years of living and travelling in the Middle East, “I have never felt such an extraordinary gap between the two worlds.”

Iran roughshod

Speaking of which, every day brings new signals about the imminence or otherwise of US action in Saddam’s land. This week alone has brought reports ranging from full-scale invasion to the ‘taking’ of Baghdad and a handful of key command centres first to initiate an internal government collapse, to a paragraph in the Washington Post reading as so: “Despite the administration’s public rhetoric about Iraq, the view of officials interviewed at the Pentagon in recent days is that there will be no action against Iraq before spring, and perhaps not even then. These officials maintain that the administration’s goal of regime change may well be achieved by Saddam’s falling into poor health, or perhaps by CIA covert operations aimed at deposing him.”

So instead, the spotlight turns to Iran, where tension continues to mount. Reformers are once more under threat. This week, the hardline Revolutionary Court dished out ten years worth of jail sentence to more than thirty liberal Islamists. They were charged with seeking to overthrow the Islamic system. At the same time, the Court banned the Iran Freedom Movement, the country’s main opposition group that uses non-violent means to promote greater freedom and democracy. As a result President Khatami’s government is barely hanging together.

The hardliners are emphasising the need for national unity, playing hard on the notion that the Islamic republic and its revolutionary values are under threat, not only from internal reformers but from the Great Satan itself, the US. American forces are already stationed to the east of Iran in Afghanistan. An attack on Iraq would move them along the Western border as well. Branded a member of Bush’s “axis-of-evil”, the hardliners fear that Iran would be the next prize for Washington, as they move in to overthrow the Islamic order.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports on the growing concern in the US and Israel over the joint Russo-Iranian construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr. The power plant is considered a huge security risk in the region and feared to be the final stage of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme. The talk is of a possible “pre-emptive strike” by the US, taking out the plant on the grounds of reacting to threats to national security before, as on 09/11, it’s too late. The plant is set to be active in the next two or three years, after Russia delivers its first load of nuclear fuel.

Satellite image

But, as the Post points out, “pre-emptive action” will almost undoubtedly be seen by Iran as an act of war, and there are many cold feet in Washington. Still, whatever the Bush administration chooses, Israel has already said that it will not allow the plant to open. Ha’aretz reported an official of Israel’s National Security Council last month as saying, “everything must be done, including, if necessary, using force to prevent Tehran from achieving nuclear weapons capabilities.” Washington’s unofficial policy of “pre-emptive action” is partly based on the Israeli action of 1981 when it took out the French-built Osirak light-nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Russia seems distinctly undeterred by American warnings and announced last week that it planned to build five more nuclear reactors in Iran.

So, right on cue, as if scripted, none other than Javier Solana jets into Tehran this week, doing his best to widen the US-EU divide. The EU Foreign Policy Chief described his talks with Iranian senior officials as “constructive”. Engagement with Iran has become one of the EU’s cause celebres ever since the “axis” speech. In what must have been a direct reference to the actions of the Revolutionary Court this week, Solana said, “In recent years, there has been an improvement in EU-Iran relations. Let me make clear from the outset that the process of reform in Iran has been crucial for this positive development.”

Referring to the proposed trade co-operation agreement between the EU and Iran, Solana insisted that economic growth must go hand-in-hand with political reform. “We do not believe that an agreement between the EU and Iran can be only about economic and commercial aspects,” he said. “It also has to cover political issues, human rights, the fight against terrorism.”

The Iranian Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharazzi, congratulated the EU on not endorsing the “axis-of-evil” line from Washington.

(Sources: BBC, Washington Post, Reuters)

Armageddon? None of your business

Always keeping one eye on outer space, the Diary is finally able to bring its readers some good news. The fate of civilisation was looking bleak for while, never more so than this past week when a British tabloid buried the story “Asteroid to Pulverise Earth” on page 28, behind the TV gossip, celebrity ditties, and women’s body-parts.

Armageddon, in case you were wondering, was set for 1 February 2019.

However, it looks as if our advanced way of life is set to survive at least another forty-three years beyond that. Astronomers now say that the two-kilometre-wide asteroid 2002 NT7, the blighter set to wreck our TV schedules, is to miss the earth by some distance in 2019. However, they can’t rule out an impact on 1 February 2060 (what is it about that date one wonders?), but who can think that far ahead?

Debate is said to be rife behind the closed doors of the astronomy community. The BBC reports that many observers are concerned at media sensationalism, and are convinced that the masses should not be informed about possible collisions, but should be left in peace to watch TV, unawares.

On this evidence, can we believe what we hear about 2002 NT7? Or is it heading towards us as we waste our last precious moments on this earth reading the Diary? Are we going to have to rely on the accuracy of the US military to save our butts?

Quotes of the week

“If you’re a CEO and you think you can fudge the books in order to make yourself look better, we’re going to find you, we’re going to arrest you and we’re going to hold you to account.”
Former Harken Energy Corp. Board Member and owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball Franchise, George W. Bush.

“Keep your eye on the long term, and the long term for America is fabulous…I think we’re going to have more people in jail.”
Lawrence Lindsay, President Bush’s Chief Economic Advisor, reflecting on US prosperity and the fate of its CEOs.

“I’m not aware of any linkage to al-Qaida or terrorism, so I have to wonder if this has something to do with his father being targeted by Saddam.”
Un-named US general in Afghanistan assessing the logic of attacking Iraq. The US government believes that Iraqi agents plotted to assassinate President George Bush with a car bomb in a 1993 visit to Kuwait. Quoted in the Washington Post.

“Just open a map. Afghanistan is in turmoil, the Middle East is in flames, and you want to open a third front in the region? That would truly turn into a war of civilisations.”
Unnamed member of the Kuwaiti royal family, described by the New York Times as “in close consultation with Washington.”

Fact of the week

The universe is 13.89 billion years old – give or take half a billion years. A mere 4.8% of it is made of ordinary matter. Matter of any type – known, unknown, luminous, dark – accounts for only 27.5%. The rest, 72.5% is mysterious dark energy. (Source: Dr. William Percival at the University of Edinburgh. Found in the NYT.)

Contact the Diary Editor: dominic.hilton@opendemocracy.net

Readers’ Responses

- A response to Paul Rogers

Michael Brenner has written a response to Paul Rogers’ argument about a ‘conflict of perceptions’ between Israel and the rest of the world. He argues that while Europeans are ‘wildly naive’ about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and most analysts have been ‘painfully wrong’ in tracking its progress, the Arab states and Iran are committed to Israel’s destruction and using the Palestinians as ‘political pawns’ to that effect. Paul Rogers’ indifference to Israel’s security is rooted in the source of his writings: an ivory tower.

- Meanwhile, Andreas Fungenzi says ‘Cheers to Eyal’

Dear Editor,

I am very sorry about the silly decision by the Israeli Institution of Architects to close the exhibition in Berlin. I had the opportunity to attend the presentation made by Eyal Weizman of his extraordinary work at the London Centre of International Relations (University of Kent) in May. It was absolutely a piece of professionalism and enlightenment on the “Politics of Verticality”, as he called it, by the last Israeli governments. As I told Eyal in a successive meeting in a pub, if only there were Israel more people sharing the ideas of openDemocracy...

I hope that the release of the book in the UK will help the circulation of much wiser options for a peaceful solution to the ongoing Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Best regards

Andreas Fungenzi