Hug[h]e[s] Diplomacy
October 31st, 2007Joe Biden said that Rudy Giuliani’s speeches consist of “a noun, a verb and 9/11.”
That’s about right. (Rudy countered that Biden does nothing but run his mouth; he should’ve made a crack about Biden being a plagiarist, exaggerated though that is. I guess Rudy was content to let the honorable candidate for Secretary of State have his day.)
Karen Hughes left Washington today. For those of you who don’t know, she was a longtime friend of George W. Bush’s who followed him from the campaign trail in Texas and was eventually rewarded with a position in the State Department aimed at improving our image in the Arab World. Some refer to her as a failure (Arabs like us less now than when she took over, according to opinion polls taken in police states with limited technology and knowledge). I definitely agree that she didn’t accomplish much but there are two nuances:
1. This is a “generations-long” campaign, as Hughes pointed out, and
2. The Arab World is bound to dislike us at this time and has for a long time. A big part of that is Israel; another is economic resentment; the other is religion. And that’s the issue I take with Karen Hughes’ “mission”: diplomacy and public relations is all fine and well but giving a pretty speech to the King of Saudi Arabia isn’t going to do much and it isn’t like the Islamic World is tuning in to our propaganda machine.
For many years, the Arab World has hated us and will for many more. It has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of our policy. Rather, it is an inevitable reality of America’s being the lone superpower, and it won’t change until that part of the world liberalizes. Until it does, we must foster good relations through sound policy, open relations and economic cooperation while reaching out to Middle Eastern intellectuals and social political leaders (non-government) who will reach out to the people over time.