Put up or shut up

Friday’s post on the near-invisibility of U.S. public diplomacy in the raging Arab and Muslim arguments over the Israeli attack on Gaza has generated quite a bit of discussion among public diplomacy professionals (among others). While many have expressed strong agreement (in public and private) with my criticisms, others have pushed back.

Kim Andrew Elliott, who has for years offered invaluable and level-headed coverage of U.S. foreign broadcasting, writes:

Sometimes the best public diplomacy is sparse public diplomacy. Quantity of public diplomacy does not constitute quality.
  The Bush administration has positioned itself thus: it supports Israel’s right to defend itself against missiles, but does not want to be portrayed as the authorizer, benefactor, and cheerleader of Israel’s military campaign into Gaza. Nor does the administration want to join the global chorus of those who are condemning Israel, or calling for a ceasefire before Israel’s objectives are met. In such a situation, the best thing to do, the only thing to do, is to keep one’s own counsel.

Similarly, in an email, one of America’s most experienced public diplomacy officials in the Arab world compares the current crisis to the Danish cartoons crisis:

"When it erupted, the Danes and Europeans were bashed by Muslims all over the world. Karen Hughes thought about commenting but she was dissuaded by some PD professionals and she kept silent. Wise move. Not the same as Gaza of course, where we are deeply implicated, but some times it’s better to keep your head down.

I half agree and half disagree — in both cases, with important implications for how we should think about public diplomacy.

I agree that no amount of public diplomacy can cover for a poorly conceived policy.  If the U.S. in fact is going to pursue a poorly conceived, self-defeating, and extremely unpopular policy (hurting American strategic interests hurt, undermining moderates, empowering al-Qaeda and other radicals) then yes, it’s probably better for U.S. public diplomacy to keep its collective mouth shut. But that’s because of the policy, not because of the public diplomacy — and more aggressively marketing or spinning that policy isn’t really going to help.

But we shouldn’t fool ourselves about the costs of such silence. Far more than in the Danish cartoons stupid-storm, every relevant actor in the Middle East already sees the U.S. as deeply implicated in the Gaza crisis. Being silent doesn’t make the U.S. invisible any more than closing your eyes means that others can’t see you. Everyone in the region is more than happy to define American policy in lines with their own interests, whether or not the U.S. is involved in the discussion. If the U.S. isn’t at the table, all the easier for them to win the framing battle. This is the same mistake the Bush administration made half a decade ago, when senior officials boycotted al-Jazeera out of hostility towards its editorial policies — hurting al-Jazeera not a bit, but hurting America’s image a lot.

That’s why I, and so many others, have constantly argued that public diplomacy needs to be integrated into the formation of policy, not tacked on at the end to help sell a policy formulated in isolation from its likely reception among foreign audiences. Public diplomacy isn’t just talking. It involves listening, anticipating, honestly evaluating trends in foreign public opinion as they are and not as we would like them to be, and assessing the likely impact of those trends. The Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy (or some similar official) should be at the policy table, helping the administration understand the likely reception of different policy choices among relevant audiences, not waiting for instructions.