Ackerman on Kerry

Spencer Ackerman has a fabulous article on Kerry's approach to the war on terror. Unfortunately, as one more testament to The New Republic's total suckiness, it is not online. But I'd like to highlight some key passages.

On public diplomacy, obviously a matter about which I care a lot: "As the 9/11 Commission observed, a crucial aspect of that ideological campaign must be a major public diplomacy push in the Islamic world. That effort has gone sorely neglected by Bush, who launched an Arabic TV network only this year and who, in 2004, is spending a mere $79 million for education and cultural exchanges in the entire Muslim world. The bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy last month pleaded with the administration for a "more strategic and responsive" communications effort that "reflect[s] the values and attitudes of target audiences." As it happens, Biden has one ready to go. Known as Initiative 911, it is a plan to establish "credible channels of communication with the people of the Islamic world" by developing a country-specific mix of political and cultural programming for dissemination via satellite television, radio, and the Internet. (It contains differentiated strategies for broadcasting in 23 countries and regions.) For a start-up cost of $567 million and an annual cost of $345 million--less than what the United States spends every week in Iraq--the initiative would offer not only "policy statements and explanations from senior members of the U.S. government," but also a forum for discussing "major issues in the Islamic world," such as democracy, economic development, religious strife, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Various of Kerry's policy advisers have floated few proposals along these lines, some of which have only recently begun to surface in his speeches. Ackerman quotes a good line from a recent speech at Temple: "Kerry has made preventing the rise of future jihadists a central aspect of his war plan. "For Al Qaeda, this war is a struggle for the heart and soul of the Muslim world. We will win this war only if the terrorists lose that struggle," he said in a recent speech at Temple University. "We have to preempt the haters. We have to win the war of ideas."" Kerry gets this, and it's about time that he starts to make this case more clearly and explicitly. ]

On democratic reform, Ackerman also does a great job of capturing the basic fact that while Bush talks about Arab democracy, everything he does actually works against it: "Other than Iraq, the president's major contribution to the ideological campaign against Al Qaeda was his Greater Middle East Initiative, floated in meetings with foreign dignitaries at the beginning of the year, which offered programs to, among other things, build civil society, strengthen the rule of law, and fight corruption. Unfortunately, as democracy promotion experts Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have observed, Bush's much-heralded initiative was "hollow," consisting of proposals "mostly already present in existing U.S. aid programs in the region," as well as in various agreements between European and Middle Eastern nations. When the region's autocracies resisted even those mild suggestions, the administration watered the initiative down even further--until it became a series of vague statements about reform without new funding or strategies for implementation. Unsurprisingly, those statements have had little impact. Last month, for example, Saudi Arabia postponed for a second time its first-ever elections, and announced this week that women won't be able to vote--abrogations of democratic reform greeted by silence from the White House. One reason the Greater Middle East Initiative failed is that it avoided any mention of the real concerns of the Muslim world--in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Political reform in the Arab world hardly depends on resolution of the conflict, but, as Egyptian liberal dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim told BusinessWeek last year, "There is cynicism about whether the U.S. is sincere [about spreading democracy]. A forceful move to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict evenhandedly has to be the yardstick by which we measure sincerity." But Bush seems to have little regard for the actual concerns of Muslims. Instead, he expects the Islamic world to adopt his agenda uncomplainingly. Bush's approach, Ottaway and Carothers wrote, amounts to "a triumph of abstract logic over political reality" and results only in entrenched autocracy and increased anti-Americanism."

Kerry, on the other hand, has an approach based on actual dialogue with real, living, breathing Arab and Muslim reformers which is far more likely to actually succeed: "Far from imposing democracy from the top down, Kerry told a Los Angeles audience in February, "We must support human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grassroots up." Too many well meaning people are fooled by Bush's nice democracy talk, but Kerry's approach is the kind that can actually work.

On the question of dialogue with Islamic moderates, a topic of much discussion on this site, Kerry also gets it: "But, even if the United States exponentially increased its credibility in the Muslim world, it still couldn't hope to discredit Al Qaeda from an Islamic perspective. That can only be accomplished by Muslim scholars and religious authorities. In an interview with Time last month, Kerry argued that winning the war of ideas means "bringing religious leaders together, including moderate mullahs, clerics, imams--pulling the world together in a dialogue about who these extremists really are and how they are hijacking the legitimacy of Islam itself.""

I won't reproduce any more out of (grudging) respect for TNR's privacy policy, but I do recommend this as far, far better than that New York Times Magazine piece on Kerry - and as the clearest statement I've yet seen of the good ideas coming out of the Kerry campaign for effectively fighting the so-called "war of ideas" in the Islamic and Arab world.

Comments

[praktike]

The first thing I thought of when I read this on Friday was: Team Kerry better hire Spencer Ackerman. He makes their case far, far more lucidly than they do. Fire Jamie Rubin and Susan Rice and put Spencer on the team. I also felt a sense of relief, because there's been too much Scowcroftian realism and not enough liberal internationalism seeping out. Good for Ackerman for packaging it all in a way that they have been unable to do themselves. BTW, you know that Biden *did* originally put Initiative 911 forward in 2001, but it morphed into Radio Sawa and Al Hurra, which is actually run by Maronites.

[Jonathan Dresner]

Didn't Donald Rumsfeld concede, about a year ago, that we were winning the battles but losing the war because we weren't engaging in any productive discourse that would prevent continued radicalization?

[jonnybutter]

After I finally read it, I was surprised and disheartened by both the piece itself, and by all the serious attention the Bai piece seemed to get. It typified a certain awful style: passive aggressive - that is, covertly snide; studiedly muddled; utterly humorless; simply stupid ("...Americans are frightened -- an emotion that has benefited Bush, and one that he has done little to dissuade" done little to disuade?!); far too long for its actual content; and dry as a popcorn fart.

Thanks for the review and snippet of Ackerman's piece. I kind of hate to do it, but I may no longer be able to avoid subscribing to TNR, dangit.

[jonnybutter]

(sorry, that should've read: "It typifies a certain awful NYT style")

[Abu Frank]

". . . public diplomacy, obviously a matter about which I care a lot . . ." (Abu Aardvark)

Why? The Islamic world's dislike of US policy is based not on misunderstanding but on right understanding (though that dislike in turn gives rise to paranoid fantasies). There is no really nice way to say, "Sure, we don't mind strangling your economy or invading you to maintain our power in your region."

Positive attitudes to the U.S. are more likely arise from experience of American life, or the example of civil rights and democracy in U.S. domestic practice. Better than public diplomacy would be to reform the INS to better reconcile security and visitor - friendliness.

"We have to preempt the haters. We have to win the war of ideas." (Kerry)

That may be just pandering to U.S. egomania, but it misses the point that the U.S. is not a protagonist in the "war of ideas"; the protagonists are Bin Laden, Ramadan, Qaradawi, etc., etc.. Obviously the U.S. is a stakeholder, but this war isn't the U.S.'s to win or lose, any more than China was.

"Bush's much-heralded initiative was \"hollow\""(Ackerman)

Jackson Diehl had an article on October 11 that suggested the initiative is doing some modest good. Against my priors, but his argument did seem somewhat plausible.

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23012-2004Oct10.html

"A forceful move to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict evenhandedly has to be the yardstick by which we measure sincerity." (Saad Eddin Ibrahim)

Then he'll continue to find the U.S. insincere while the Israel lobby holds sway in Washington. But this is unreasonable. The U.S. has a particular attachment that prevents it from dealing with the conflict objectively; letting go of that attachment and sincerely promoting democracy are separate issues.

"There is cynicism about whether the U.S. is sincere [about spreading democracy]." (Saad Eddin Ibrahim)

Rightly so. But it's a mistake to tie this to closely to Israel/Palestine. It's mostly about the convenience of dealing with corrupt pliable autocrats.

"Far from imposing democracy from the top down, Kerry told a Los Angeles audience in February, "We must support human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grassroots up." (Ackerman)

This is tremendously right-headed . . .

". . . winning the war of ideas means "bringing religious leaders together . . ." (Ackerman/Kerry)

. . . but not this, if the means the U.S. bringing religious leaders together.

Best thing the U.S. can do is to listen humbly to the moderates / liberals / democrats and ask how it can help. Sometimes an ancillary role can be cool, like providing air support to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

[Tom Scudder]

It may be a mistake for Arabs to tie their perceptions of US intentions to Israel-Palestine, but it is a fact that they do. I myself doubt that any public diplomacy will have much effect without at least symbolic, and likely substantive movement there.

Already, the general consensus from what I hear from Arab friends is that Kerry is not going to be any different.

[paperwight]

For those who would resist subscribing to TNR, I subscribe to Salon ($30/year), and you get a lot of goodies on a regular basis, including most recently access to 6 months of TNR in downloadable pdf format.

[Arash]

Here's the article for those interested, you're just missing the pictures.

http://www.friendscenter.nl/vagegast/docprint.mhtml.htm

[jonnybutter]

Thanks, Arash.

[praktike]

Abu Frank makes some good points, but I would advise him to read this [http://nytimes.com/2004/10/19/science/19neuro.html?hp&ex=1098244800&en=48c9d0df43f71fb6&ei=5094&partner=homepage] , which to my Coke-addled mind indicates that better public diplomacy could make at least a small difference.

[Abu Frank]

Tom Scudder: I agree with your main point (and with the use Ackerman makes of Saad Eddin Ibrahim's comments). When the U.S. supports Israel, Arabs don't think "They sure love Israel, it's just our bad luck to be in Israel's way," they think "They despise us, they have no respect for our rights, they have no regard for our welfare." IOW, they interpret U.S. actions that affect them as an expression of U.S. attitudes toward them. Who'd a thunk?

On whether Kerry would make a difference, of course he will. For starters, we won't hear President Kerry call Prime Minister Sharon "a man of peace". Still, it's fair to ask whether he'll make a difference that makes a difference (to U.S. standing with Arab liberals).

praktike: I agree, public diplomacy "could make at least a little difference"; but that's a weak statement. The main fact is, the shit sandwiches aren't selling, and management is blaming the marketing department rather than admit there's a problem with the recipe.