Improving America's Arab Image

Mohammed Abu Roman, in Jordan's al-Ghad, takes on that perennial favorite topic, America's horrible image in the Arab world.   

He divides American opinion into two camps.  The first thinks that Arab public opinion doesn't matter, and that hostility to America isn't based on politics but rather on cultural reasons, and that the US should not worry about such hostility because it is a natural condition for a great power (this position he identifies with Fouad Ajami.   The second position he identifies with "the American political analyst Marc Lynch" (blush - no, really!): it's about politics, and America's image can improve through dialogue with Arab elites and through public diplomacy.  He sees this second trend as reflected in a wide range of American think tanks and the like, including the Djerejian commission on public diplomacy and the CSIS report released last month.

Here's where it gets good.  Abu Roman argues that in contrast to his first term, this second Bush administration has rejected the first (Ajami) view and has cautiously begun to implement the second (Lynch) view.   Huh.  You think?  I mean, that would be cool, but I've got my doubts.  Anyway...

The US has learned, according to Abu Roman, that Arab public opinion does matter and can't be ignored, and has been trying to take steps to improve its image.  They've been doing this by breaking with the old bargain with Arab leaders to ignore issues of democracy and human rights.  By beginning to speak out about democracy and human rights, he writes, the US has in fact begun to improve its image with Arabs to some degree.  By pressuring states, including their friends, to improve public freedoms and human rights, the US earns the respect of the "Arab street" and even the opposition elite on the Left and the Islamist trend. 

But - and this is the big "but" - both the "street" and the "opposition elite" have grave doubts about American sincerity and credibility.  He cites press reports about American doubts about allowing Islamists to benefit from elections as strengthening those doubts.  As he sees it, Arabs are currently desperately trying to figure out whether or not the U.S. is serious about all this democracy stuff, and  are getting all kinds of mixed signals.  (Remember, he's from Jordan, a place where American democracy promotion has been conspicuously absent).

He checks off the other big issues, of course. On the Palestinian-Israeli front, he writes, Arabs continue to see America as biased towards Israel.  He notes the exchange between Elizabeth Cheney and Amr Musa at Davos about whether democratic reforms can precede resolution of the Palestinian issue, but doesn't really take a position on it himself.  And he writes that a lot of Arab hostility to America right now comes from Arab perceptions of American views of Arabs.  Remarks by Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, anti-Islamic statements - all of these anger Arabs not only in their particulars, but in what they supposedly reveal about American attitudes. 

But it's really the first issue area which seems to matter the most for him:  pushing democracy and human rights appeals to Arab public opinion, but Arabs have real doubts about American intentions.  Palestine and "anti-Arab attitudes" both seem to go towards the credibility question, as signals as to whether or not Arabs can trust American reform promotion. 

Talk about global public spheres...  Arab arguments about American debates about Arab public opinion are, for my money, more interesting and important than American arguments about American debates about Arab public opinion.   What I take away - aside from a vastly over-inflated sense of my own importance, which will quickly be punctured in a few minutes when my shirt is again covered in baby spit-up - is some confirmation of my argument that the US really can overcome "anti-Americanism" if it does the right thing.  Really push for democracy, and those Arabs that want democracy will at least give you a chance.   

At any rate, I've been working quite a bit on the question of Arab anti-Americanism, and my arguments have changed a bit.  I'll be presenting a preliminary version of that research at the APSA annual meeting in September, and will be sure to post that conference paper here when the time comes.   

Comments

[SP]

As the public diplomacy expert, where would you say the Bush administration is right now on the question of public diplomacy as changing-what-we-actually-do vs public diplomacy as putting-better-spin-on-what-we-do (or, as USAID types sometimes say, making Arabs aware of how much the US already does for them in economic or aid terms)?

[Zahi]

I think it's so difficult to really believe the United State's sincerity because of past negligence. Sadly I've encountered a lot of people in the US that say Arabs should be coming to us rather than us going to them, but I don't think they understand that because of the past it's difficult to expect that, and I wonder how it is best to effectively portray this to the average American. There's a great book that goes along with the subject of Arab/American relations called 'Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts' which I think is worth noting in this situation.