Glimmer of hope?

by George S. Hishmeh

Karen P. Hughes, described as the most powerful woman ever to work in the White House, is taking her time in returning to Washington from her Texas home for the formidable task of repairing the Bush administration's image overseas, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world.

Named a few weeks ago undersecretary of state for public diplomacy by President George W. Bush, a position that has yet to be confirmed by Congress, Hughes is not planning to assume her new assignment immediately, strangely not before the end of summer. She has been living for the last two years at home in Texas with her family and shepherding her young son who will be going to college next year.

Hughes was seen here, according to The Washington Post, as "a virtual alter ego for Bush who understands how he thinks better than any other adviser". More so, "her forceful presence and physical stature helped cement her position as a key player in any policy decision" at the White House.

Her association with Bush started during his governorship in Texas and continued during his first term as counsellor, helping build his administration. Despite her presence in Texas, Hughes reportedly continued to advise Bush particularly on major speeches and communications strategies and travelled with him frequently during the gruelling presidential campaign.

If one is inclined to be optimistic, Hughes' appointment, along with another trusted White House adviser, Condoleezza Rice now the secretary of state, and White House personnel director Dina Habib Powell, an Egyptian-born American, as assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, can at first glance be seen as a glimmer of hope. The Bush administration may, at long last, be willing to be more attentive to Arab and Muslim concerns.

First sign of this came when Rice appeared forceful last month when she declared that Israel's plans to expand the occupied West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim with3 , 500new housing units is "at odds with American policy", as spelled out in the roadmap, and could threaten progress towards peace with the Palestinians.

Another sign came this week, on the eve of Israeli Prime Ariel Sharon's visit with Bush, next Monday at his ranch in Crawford, Tex. - a testament to their close relationship. Bush repeated the US view, emphasising: "Our position is very clear that the roadmap is important and the roadmap calls for no expansion of the settlements."

The other side of the coin is not all that pleasant and it will continue to haunt the Bush administration's Middle East stance. To cite but one example, Bush told Sharon after a visit here last year that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of l949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion".

Sharon saw this as a green light to expand the settlements.

One can point to several other contradictory remarks by the administration or its senior officials on the Middle East. This probably explains why two of Hughes' predecessors, Charlotte Beers, the Fifth Avenue advertising executive, or Ambassador Margaret Tutweiller, a onetime aide to Secretary James Baker III, have hardly made a dent in the administration's slipping image overseas.

As a matter of fact, public diplomacy has not been high on this administration's agenda, and more likely, the poor relationship between the State Department's secretary of state Colin Powell and the White House did not help. Here, it ought to be recalled that the first blow to public diplomacy came from the Clinton administration, when it decided to close down the US Information Agency and merge some of its departments within the State Department.

So, no wonder Hughes, foreign affairs not being her forte, has decided to take her time in returning to Washington. She needs to brush up on her knowledge of the Middle East if she hopes to win friends in the Arab and Muslim world. Here are two observations from recent reports that she might find helpful: "Americans, for their part, have to learn," said the penultimate paragraph in the executive summary of a report issued last June by the Middle East Institute in Washington and Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, "that ignoring the feeling of peoples in the Arab world and their desire for justice and dignity can only lead to expanding the pool of terrorists, rather than drying it up. The continued frustration of the Palestinian national aspirations is a fundamental cause of extremism and terrorism in the whole region."

An earlier report submitted to Congress by the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World said "much of the resentment towards America stems from real conflicts and displeasure with policies, including those involving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Iraq".

Reza Asian, the young Iranian-American author of a just-published and highly praised book, "No god, (Ed: lower case "g") but God", told me that Hughes would do better if she would explain US "values, culture and traditions", rather than policies, and should offer more scholarships and fellowships to foreign students, whose number has dwindled after the tragic events of Sept.11 . "Her job is to create situations in which Arab and Muslims have a better understanding of US intentions ... and not to rationalise US (foreign) policy which would be a complete waste of time."

Hughes would be most effective if she would serve as a conduit, communicating to the high and mighty in Washington what the rest of the world thinks of the administration's policies in the hope that these could be amended or changed.

After all, and my apologies to James Carvllie, the Clinton campaign manager, "it is the policy, stupid!"

This article was published in the Friday-Saturday, April 8 -9,2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.