Blogging in Iran is a high-risk activity, and it is getting ever more so by the day. As the Iranian regime feels the pressure from abroad growing and threatens to flex its muscles by closing the Strait if Hormuz, internal repression in Iran has intensified, and the Internet is a top-priority target. Writes Nir Boms, co-founder of CyberDissidents.org: Apparently, to some in Iran, an American warship or a pro-American blog entry both represent perilous threats that necessitate action. And, like their allies in Syria, they are determined to act. If …
The U.S. State Department has jumped into the world of online communication with a vengeance. January 2012 has been designated 21st Century Statecraft month, and Administration officials have been busy tweeting, blogging, doing online Facebook chats, streaming video, and just about every other social media platform imaginable. As a public diplomacy tool, the Internet has become a heaven-sent gift for Foggy Bottom. Clearly, there is a very determined effort underway to upgrade the image of the State Department from a rather staid and slow-pokey bureaucracy to a hopping, hip, and …
Did the Obama Administration miss a golden opportunity in the summer of 2009 to support the demonstrations of the Iranian Green Movement and maybe even once and for all get rid of the toxic government of Iran? A lot of people around this town think so, and certainly so do a lot of Iranians who risked their lives with almost no support from the government of the United States. The Obama Administration, which has scrambled to keep up with unfolding events in the Arab Spring uprisings, is not usually one …
Those who might have nodded off after the first hour of President Obama’s third State of the Union address were surely brought back to consciousness by the startling claims on foreign policy and global leadership in the last third of the speech. As did much of the speech as a whole, it had a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality to it. “America is back,” proclaimed the President, who had just boasted of his ignominious troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. “Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you …
January 2012 is the U.S. Department of State’s “21st Century Statecraft Month.” What the State Department has in mind in this case is what former Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy James Glassman dubbed “Public Diplomacy 2.0”: using digital media to maximize outreach to foreign publics. Thus it is not a new concept but dates back to the second Bush term. However, the State Department has run with the idea, and today, believe it or not, State has more than 193 media accounts, and 100 embassies have Facebook or Twitter accounts. “Throughout …
Syria remains a holdout in the Middle East against the forces of popular discontent. The regime of Bashar al-Assad has so far stayed in power throughout the Arab uprisings where the autocrats of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya have failed. Other regimes have been forced to make political changes. If you listen to Assad himself, in his recent—rather surreal—interview with Barbara Walters, the reason he is still in power is the great love the Syrian people have for him. Indeed, he told Walters, so secure is he in their affections that …
President Obama got his hand slapped when he famously stretched it out to the Iranian regime in the early days of his presidency. Now the U.S. State Department has, figuratively speaking, gotten its nose punched by the Iranian clenched fist as it tried to communicate with the Iranian people. On December 6, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland announced the launch of Virtual Embassy Tehran, “a new and exciting engagement opportunity between the peoples of Iran and the United States.” On December 7, Iranian officials, losing little time, shut down the …
Don’t say the wheels of government always spin slowly. When there is an agenda at work, they can move with considerable speed, and in the deconstruction of American overseas broadcasting, things are moving fast. Consider a new feasibility study completed on November 10 regarding a merger of three major entities of U.S. international broadcasting: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (FRE/RL), Radio Free Asia (FRA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Network (MEBN). These are three critical components of U.S. public diplomacy—in the case of RFE/RL, going back to the beginning of the …
After President Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, U.S. embassies around the world apparently felt that foreigners still did not know enough about him, despite the unprecedented blaze of global publicity surrounding his election. As has been remarked, U.S. public diplomacy in the age of Obama often amounts to the same thing as publicity for the President himself, with American institutions serving as megaphones for his political message. Embassies in countries from France to Indonesia decided that the American taxpayer would like to give away copies of Obama’s …
Whatever became of President Barack Obama’s vaunted foreign policy czars, who were to transform America’s international relations through soft power diplomacy? The answer is nothing good. One by one the czars have fallen by the wayside, leaving a trail of bureaucratic irritation and diplomatic failure behind them. The Administration now at least tacitly acknowledges that the whole operation was a mistake. Last week’s resignation of Stephen Bosworth as special representative for North Korea marks a milestone in the czars’ decline and fall. In the words of Foreign Policy magazine’s blog, …
