The limits of 'soft power' in
Iran By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Last week the US Senate
defeated Senator Rick Santorum's proposal to
appropriate US$100 million to promote
pro-democracy efforts in Iran. The vote came after
an impassioned plea from Senator Joe Biden, a
Democrat and the ranking member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden said
the amendment to the defense spending bill by the
conservative Pennsylvania Republican - which would
also have expanded sanctions against Iran and
anyone who helps it acquire nuclear technology -
would handcuff the Bush administration as it works
with other major powers to negotiate an end to
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Biden's plea
managed to attract enough Republicans to defeat
the
Santorum measure by a
54-45 vote. Instead, the Senate voted 99-
0 to support the decision,
announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
on May 31, that the United States would join other
Western nations in engaging Iran in negotiations
and offering a package of incentives if Tehran
suspends its uranium-enrichment activities.
Santorum's proposal was in line with a
bill passed by the House of Representatives in
April, over the objections of the administration.
The administration said the House bill would limit
the flexibility it needed to reach a diplomatic
solution to the deadlock over Iran's nuclear
program.
President George W Bush's recent
180-degree turn on direct negotiations with Iran
clearly represents a defeat for the super-hawks
who have been urging military action - and
arguably an act of desperation for an
administration that has run out of good options.
But in spite of the defeat of the Santorum
proposal, the Bush administration's Iran policy
still faces some basic contradictions. For
example, should Iran decide to come to the table,
the US will still find itself negotiating at the
same time it is stepping up its "soft power"
efforts to "democratize" the country through
broadcasting, cultural exchanges and support for
dissident political parties, labor unions and
human-rights organizations.
Such
pro-democracy efforts, however, are seen by many
experts as nothing more than euphemisms for regime
change, and question whether such programs are
likely to help or hinder the nuclear negotiations.
But equally important are questions about the
content and effectiveness of such programs as well
as how committed the administration is to a
pro-democracy agenda.
As to credibility
and commitment, the potential of soft-power
initiatives must be measured against the backdrop
of what many in Iran (and elsewhere) see as the
hypocrisies and contradictions of US foreign
policy. America's credibility as the world's
champion of human rights has been diminished by
such issues as the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo, renditions, excessive secrecy, and
what appears through Middle Eastern eyes to be a
US policy blindly tilted in favor of Israel.
And, as shown by its dealings with such
countries as Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia, the
Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated
its willingness to abandon its democracy agenda in
favor of recruiting partners for the "global war
on terror" and cultivating cozy relationships with
energy-rich countries, even if they are ruled by
dictators. As to the effectiveness of the "soft
power" initiatives currently being implemented or
discussed, the situation is even murkier and more
complex.
After the 1978 Islamic Revolution
in Iran - the hostage-taking and the ending of
diplomatic relations - the US in effect ignored
that country. Iran did not again become a priority
until 2003, when some US officials awakened to the
reality that Iran was next door to Iraq and thus
positioned to do good or mischief. It was mooted
that there would be discussions between the
Iranian government and US ambassador to Iraq, but
as far as anyone knows, this never happened.
What did happen was that Bush - at the
urging of Rice - decided that using the Europeans
as surrogate negotiators simply wasn't working,
and that the US needed to participate in direct
negotiations over the nuclear issue.
In
the months during which Bush's major policy change
was being battled out within the administration,
the State Department was already tooling up for a
renaissance of "public diplomacy" directed toward
Iran. This planning started from a baseline of
almost zero.
Before the nuclear issue
exploded on to the world stage, there was limited
support for aid to emigre groups by conservative
Republican lawmakers, including Santorum, and
anti-Iran organizations such as the
American-Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC).
Senator Sam Brownback, a Christian Right ally of
the neo-conservatives, introduced the Iran
Democracy Act that sets as US policy the goal of
"an internationally monitored referendum to allow
the Iranian people to peacefully change their
system of government".
But their efforts
only succeeded in extracting a paltry US$3 million
from Congress, $1 million of which was granted to
a single US-based non-governmental organization
(NGO) known as the Iran Human Rights Documentation
Center. Its mission was to document human-rights
violations committed in Iran since the 1979
revolution.
At the same time, the large
Iranian emigre community in Los Angeles continued
to press for government support of private
US-based broadcasting services and for
pro-democracy groups inside Iran. Some in the
administration, however, were gun-shy about
supporting such groups, recalling that that's how
the US got saddled with Iraqi emigre leader Ahmad
Chalabi and his associate who goes by the code
name "Curveball".
But well before the
current nuclear issue became a daily page 1 story,
a growing sense of urgency about Iran had landed
at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which
oversees all US foreign broadcasting efforts. The
BBG's current budget for Persian broadcasting
through the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free
Europe is about $14.7 million.
So, back in
2003, the BBG's controversial Republican chairman,
Kenneth Tomlinson, called Washington from a board
meeting in Prague urgently to order VOA's main
Persian-language television show to go daily from
once a week. In the autumn of 2004, Tomlinson
persuaded then-national security adviser Rice to
push for funding that would allow VOA to boost its
Persian-language television programming from just
nine original hours per week to 28 per week.
Today, the State Department's vision for
the immediate future is far more ambitious. Rice
has asked Congress for another $75 million to
implement an ambitious three-pronged strategy
involving:
Expanding independent radio and television,
with some $50 million allocated to establishing
around-the-clock, Farsi-language television in
tandem with current foreign non-stop radio
broadcasts.
Funding pro-democracy groups, an initiative
that would require lifting the current ban on US
financing of Iran-based NGOs, trade unions,
human-rights groups and opposition candidates.
Most of the money was to go to organizations based
outside of Iran but with direct ties to eligible
groups and people inside the country to protect
their identity.
Boosting cultural and education fellowships
and exchanges to help pay Iranian students and
scholars to enroll in US universities. During the
1970s, there were 200,000 Iranian students in the
United States, Rice told Congress; today that
figure has plummeted to about 2,000.
The
State Department has already begun to implement a
more robust Iran strategy. For example, it has
created an Iran desk. Last year only two people in
the department worked full-time on Iran; now there
will be 10. The department is also launching more
training in the Farsi language and is planning an
Iranian career track, which will be difficult
without an embassy in Tehran. And the office of
the Middle East Partnership Initiative is seeking
proposals for grant applications that support
democratic governance and reform in Iran.
But, realistically, there are major
components of this Iran strategy that the US
government simply cannot implement.
Current law would have to be changed to
allow direct support for labor unions, opposition
political parties, and dissident NGOs within Iran.
More important, the US cannot "empower civil
society" - without landing the recipients in jail.
It can work to increase the number of
Iranian students enrolled in US colleges and
universities. But this will not be easy. Visa
restrictions represent one obstacle. Another is
the absence of a US embassy in Tehran, which means
prospective students have to travel to locations
outside Iran to apply for US visas. And while
increasing the number of visiting students is a
time-tested and successful effort, it is a very
long-term proposition.
So if many of the
more ambitious visions of what the State
Department can do are off the table, what's left
is broadcasting, which is why two-thirds of the
$75 million request will be spent to increase
Farsi television and radio broadcasting into Iran.
This involves expanding existing
Persian-language television and radio programs
directly financed by US taxpayers, such as shows
produced by the Persian desk of Voice of America
in Washington. VOA would share roughly $30 million
of the emergency funding with Radio Farda, a joint
effort of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and
Voice of America.
Radio Farda produces
fresh news and information at least twice an hour,
with longer news programming in the morning and
the evening. It also broadcasts a combination of
popular Persian and Western music, operating 24
hours a day on medium-wave digital audio satellite
and on the Internet, as well as 21 hours a day on
shortwave. It claims to receive 100 e-mails daily
from its Internet service.
VOA also
broadcasts daily half-hour satellite TV news
programs. Although it is illegal to own a
satellite dish in Iran, an estimated 15 million
Iranians are believed to have access to satellite
TV. But because of the difficulty of surveying the
Iranian public, US officials do not know how many
actually tune in.
This month, VOA'S
popular Persian-language Mizegerdi ba Shoma
("Roundtable with You") program will expand to
a new daily schedule, broadcasting 60 minutes a
day. The radio-TV simulcast has been broadcast
weekly for 90 minutes for nearly a decade.
How effective have US-funded broadcasts
been in Iran? The impact has been mixed,
experts say. While fewer than 5% of Iranians who
listen to foreign broadcasts tune into VOA, Radio
Farda appears to have had more success. The
24-hour news and music station is the
third-most-important conduit of information in
Iran after local television and radio (excluding
print media), according to an April-May 2005
survey commissioned by the BBG.
Another
survey - carried out by calling Iranian phone
numbers and asking the person on the other end
whether he/she listens to Radio Farda - put the
number of adult listeners per week at 13.6% of the
adult population. But sponsors of the survey
acknowledge that it is not clear "how many
Iranians will speak honestly with a complete
stranger who has telephoned them out of the blue".
Is the new effort worth $75 million in
taxpayer funds?
John Brown, a former
Foreign Service officer and now a professor of
public diplomacy at Georgetown University,
supports the new public-diplomacy effort but says
it may be too little, too late. "We should have
started ages ago," he said. "Now we're playing
catch-up."
Brown added, "I think that
public-diplomacy efforts in Iran are bound to fail
unless our policies drastically change. After all,
Persians weren't exactly 'born yesterday', and pop
songs or even 'serious' discussions about values
on the air are not going to change people's
mindsets."
Lionel Beehner of the Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR) also takes a skeptical
view of the potential impact of US plans. "I'm
generally skeptical of the good soft diplomacy can
have in Iran. The surveys I see show that most
Iranians, particularly youth, who make up a bulk
of the country, are pretty pro-America already -
not pro-US foreign policy, however. A growing
number have access to satellite TV. This is not
Poland circa 1980," he said.
And William
Rugh, former US ambassador to the United Arab
Emirates and a specialist in Middle East public
diplomacy, said, "The package of new
public-diplomacy initiatives directed at Iran
contains some positive elements and some
well-meaning but doubtful ones. The positive
elements of the new Iran package are those that
involve broadcasting, both radio and television.
These are the soft-power instruments that are
highly appropriate in current circumstances with
respect to Iran."
Rugh said, "Other parts
of the package are impractical. There is no way we
can work with NGOs or dissidents or reformers
inside Iran effectively, and working with exiles
has limited value. For such programs, we must wait
for an improvement in the overall atmosphere." He
added, "We should engage Tehran instead of
confronting Tehran."
Overall, he said,
"public diplomacy is a positive step but it's very
difficult to do without our being there".
It remains to be seen whether Iranians
will be influenced by US-funded media, experts
say. According to Alvin Snyder, a VOA veteran now
associated with the Center for Public Diplomacy at
the University of Southern California, "The VOA's
Persian-language TV programs must be compelling to
successfully compete for viewers in Iran, where a
variety of indigenous program fare is readily
available, from sports to movies, and from news to
family shows and entertainment. The VOA needs to
speak out quickly and boldly, to stake out its
turf within Iran's media landscape, to excite
viewers and attract immediate attention."
The CFR's Beehner said he is "not
convinced that most Iranians are that committed to
going nuclear. Many see others with nuclear
programs and think, 'Why not us?'"
One
additional critical issue needs to be factored
into this equation: resistance from within Iran.
Human-rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, the first
Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the Nobel
Peace Prize, expressed this view in a recent
interview on the US Public Broadcasting System's
NewsHour.
Asked whether the Bush
administration's $75 million program would be
"useful to you and your colleagues who are engaged
in this fight from the inside", Ebadi replied,
"No, I don't think that it benefits me or people
like me, because whoever speaks about democracy in
Iran will be accused of having been paid by the
United States."
Ebadi is not alone. Her
views echo those of many other Iranian
civil-society activists who worry that the
proposed US initiative will simply be used by the
Islamic Republic as a pretense for intensifying
its repressive approach toward civil-society
organizations.
Lionel Beehner agrees. In
funding pro-democracy groups abroad or in Iran,
"you endanger those you're trying to help".
Beyond that, however, the reality of
public diplomacy - whether through broadcasting,
cultural exchanges, or support for dissident
groups - is that it cannot be turned on and off.
It was never intended to be a quick fix. Even in a
best-case scenario, it depends on a consistent
effort over an extended period.
The US has
failed to mount that kind of effort, and that
failure does not bode well for the prospect of
"winning hearts and minds" in Iran any time soon.
And this may make the nuclear negotiations
even more difficult.
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