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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired September 30, 2005 - 21:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very difficult to differentiate between the American people and the American policy here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did it teach you a great deal about democracy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely. Very great experience.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did it give you a feeling that you would like to see more political participation here in the future?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My daddy said something to me very simple when I was a boy: if you deal with bad people, you get bad results.

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RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Can a woman who helped President George Bush win election twice in America win over the hearts and minds of skeptics in the Middle East and elsewhere about the United States?

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York.

Karen Hughes, the U.S. public diplomacy envoy, made a quick five-day trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey this past week. Hughes, a close Bush confidant, campaigned as if back in primary states in the United States, employing a relaxed, down-home Americana approach, telling Muslim audiences, "I am a mom and I love kids."

The main point from Hughes: she came to listen but hopes democracy can flourish.

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KAREN HUGHES, U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ENVOY: I think it's important that we take a stand in a humble way but yet in a forward-looking way, as the president was doing with his inaugural address, with his democracy and freedom agenda, to say we believe, as America, that there are certain principles that are right and true for people everywhere and we're going to stand for them.

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ROTH: Hughes' strong ties to President Bush meant that she got high- level meetings with political and religious leaders, but how did people along the way feel about her mission?

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): President Bush is a two-faced man. He treats Americans and Jews in one way and the Muslims in a different way. He should look at the poor Arab people who are under attack and the poor Palestinians, and he should look at what Israel is doing to the Muslims and treat them accordingly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said she came here with an open mind and she is going to listen to everyone, but I think she has an agenda which is no different from Bush's agenda. It is very difficult for her to change this agenda.

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ROTH: Turkey was the last stop on Hughes' trip. As with other Muslim countries, the war in Iraq next door is a huge problem for any U.S.-image selling.

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ALI TUYGAN, TURKISH UNDERSECY. OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: I think we need a deeper dialogue, a more structured dialogue, and we wish to convey the outcome of this dialogue to our publics, so that they are reassured that this cooperation is as solid as ever and continues going on the right track.

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ROTH: Joining me from Cairo, Egypt, someone who met with Karen Hughes on her journey, Lamees Al-Hadidi, chief editor of a business daily, "Al- Alam Al-Yawm." Ms. Al-Hadidi was formerly with the TV news network Al- Jazeera and recently headed the media department for President Mubarak's campaign.

And in Washington, Shibley Telhami. Mr. Telhami is Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.

Also from Washington, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a political and policy research force in the Arab America community. He has had lunch with Karen Hughes and will tell us what kind of listener she was, and maybe what else was on the menu.

But first, let's begin in Cairo and Lamees Al-Hadidi. Did Karen Hughes make any inroads into the Arab mindset about America led by George Bush?

LAMEES AL-HADIDI, "AL-ALAM AL-YAWM": Well, it's very difficult to have a visit, a short visit for Ms. Hughes to come and meet with the Egyptian government and some of the religious leaders and some of the elitists of the Arab mind or the Egyptian minds, and then think that there will be something different in the Arab state of mind.

This is a perception that has been built throughout 30 or 40 years of American policies, and a simple PR campaign will not change that.

The point here is not improving the image but whether Ms. Hughes is capable of changing and reshaping the American policies. You cannot ask people to suddenly change the way they think about America just through a visit. American policies affect the daily lives of the Arab citizen, whether in Egypt, I Palestine, in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, and the images they've been watching on satellite networks definitely does not help America.

Again, the fact that the U.S. government has decided to establish a department of public diplomacy and assign someone who is quite close to President Bush and quite prominent is a positive thing.

ROTH: This is also a post that has not been filled for a long time, and this is like the fourth envoy.

James Zogby, Karen Hughes, she's only one person. She did say she was there to listen. Is this a turn from the Bush administration regarding the Muslim community?

JAMES ZOGBY, ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE: Listen, I think Karen Hughes is an extraordinarily qualified person. She is -- I have met with all of her predecessors. She is the smartest to be sure.

I think some mistakes were made on the visit, though. Number one, she shouldn't have been the star of the visit. The people she was listening to should have been. I think that casting her visit and structuring it like a secretary of state's visit, with her not only engaged in formal meetings but also sort of responding, and not just listening but responding with the same old/same old didn't really help. She should have just listened, and she should have made it clear that she wasn't there to tell them what America stands for. She was there to hear what they wanted from America and then to come back home and react to it and deal with it later on.

But, look, she's got a long time yet in this post, and my hope is that when she returns she'll be renewed in her effort to reach out to those of us who understand the region and talk about what she has experienced. She certainly didn't have an easy time on the trip.

ROTH: Shibley?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI, UNIV. OF MARYLAND: I think there is no question that she billed her trip as a listening trip. That is a departure. It is important. Because, as you know, public diplomacy had been structured like let's tell the world how good we are. This is a little bit different.

I have met with her as a member of the public diplomacy committee that had made recommendations that they should be listening, and she certainly took that seriously. Having said that, I think there are two problems. One is the one that Jim alluded to, the listening part. Certainly, it's part of projecting empathy. You want people to know that you are listening to them. That's what people want. They want to be heard. And so part of it is the trip has a consequence in the region in terms of did she portray herself as listening.

The fact that she had to respond with political positions that people are tired of undermined her message. Yet I think her weakness is the fact that she is not an expert. Her strength is the fact that she is close to the president and the secretary of state. If she in fact heard what was communicated to her and brought it back and communicates it to policy, that's a huge (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ROTH: I mean, in Saudi Arabia she was hearing women tell her we don't mind not having licenses and we're very happy with our lives while she was trying to, it seems, tell them, you know, you could be better off with more democracy.

ZOGBY: I actually told her that when we met, and one of the most interesting results that we've got in our polling that we've done in Saudi Arabia is that women in Saudi Arabia, when asked the question, "How important is it to increase the rights of women?" women actually are less inclined to support that proposition than men, and it's something that's been rejected by folks at the State Department, but my advice to her and to those who deal with this issue is when you're dealing with Saudi women, walk carefully, because they are not as you would expect them to be more inclined to support women's rights than men.

TELHAMI: Jim, the polls -- including the Zogby polls -- yes, they're nuanced on this. For example, the vast majority of Saudi women want to have the right to work outside the house. And that is clear. Women do want more empowerment. Maybe not exactly the same way as in the United States.

But I think the problem here isn't just about what rights women want in Saudi Arabia. It's the perception that the United States is telling them what to want. That's the real problem, and I think here the issue of having it undermine moral position on issues of democracy or human rights, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) perceptions. All of these have undermined our ability to speak with moral authority and people don't like to be lectured to, particularly when the message is coming from someone they don't have high regards for.

AL-HADIDI: But, gentlemen, listening is something great. Ms. Hughes did a lot of listening in Cairo.

The idea is not just to listen. The idea is, is she capable, is she influential, can she change the American policies. That's the important thing. You cannot expect the Arab citizen to change his perception on America just through a television station or a radio station. Listening is great, it's like a psychiatrist. You talk to the psychiatrist and that's it.

So you need someone who is influential to change the American policies. The double standards regarding the Palestinian issue, all of the problems and the policies based on factual errors. We need a new perception, a new way of thinking about this region, and a priority to this region instead of being marginalized.

ZOGBY: Certainly that's the point, and I think that that is very clear. But I would add that there is probably no one better positioned if there is to be a change in policy than Karen Hughes to make that happen.

She has not just the president's ear, but the president's confidence and trust. She has been one of his most senior and influential advisers and I think that if she came back with the sense that something needed to be done here to tweak or change policy, she could make it happen.

I think that's the point Shibley was eluding to when he said people know the respect she has. She is not an expert, but she is trusted. I think the problem was how she cast the visiting like a visiting dignitary or policy-maker, so that the spotlight was on her and her talking to or at people and not so much in the listening mode, and I think that created expectations maybe a little too high, that she was actually going to do something on the visit.

ROTH: Is she really going to tell President Bush, you know, the people over there don't like the war in Iraq and they really don't like policies in Washington towards Israel, and George Bush, who is not exactly unstubborn, is he really going to change anything?

TELHAMI: Well, that's a really good question, because I think the reality of it is that public diplomacy can only make a bit of a difference. I mean, in the end, these are major strategic issues.

Look, most of the region is influenced by the way we behave far more than by what we say on television or somewhere else, and I think in the end, the president's priorities right now in the Middle East are really determined by other issues and particularly he is a weakened president at the moment. It is going to be very difficult for him to change course.

Nonetheless, everyone that has looked at this has said, OK, so maybe 80 percent of it is about policy, but there is 20 percent that is about public diplomacy, and I think if you look at the collapse of trust in the United States, the confidence in the United States over the past four years, even where there are policy differences, people are not comfortable that they can deal with them. You have to built that in order to deal with these differences.

ROTH: Lamees?

AL-HADIDI: But my problem with Ms. Hughes' visit is that we're only dealing with it 20 percent. We were not talking about the 80 percent. We were talking about how can we improve the image.

Students exchange, maybe journalists will go there for training, maybe we can have some professional training and internships in the United States. We were talking about the image. We were not discussing policies. There was not a single issue of policy tackled in a serious way. We are talking about the image. How can the United States look good. And, again, the image can only reflect reality. We cannot expect an image to reflect something that is not there, and what is there is a U.S. policy that is being negative to the Arab citizens, and you really need real change on the ground. These policies are affecting the lives of the people.

ROTH: U.S. backers would say that there is a strong America desire to help, through money and programs throughout the Middle East, it doesn't get that much attention, and that some people would like to speak out but they are dominated by forces that are opposed to George Bush, though as I think you mentioned or eluded to before, they listen to American rock-and-roll, there are these American efforts that go in there. It's all not one-way, though it is portrayed that way, in the so-called street.

I mean, there was one woman who CNN interviewed who said there should be more democracies among the Arab governments and you headed a media campaign for President Mubarak. He's not exactly been democracy-friendly over the decades.

ZOGBY: One of the issues that --

ROTH: Let's give Lamees a chance to respond.

AL-HADIDI: Yes, I am a bit also confused, and I am talking now as a journalist, because I have left my job as media manager for President Mubarak. But I am now talking as a journalist. I am a bit confused also about the American policy towards democracy in the region.

Suddenly we have this American attitude towards we need a democratic region, after supporting for such a long decades autocratic regimes, and then suddenly we wake up after September 11 to the new era of democracy. Fine. But then we find, what kind of standards do we have for democracy. We have the standards in Iraq. We promised the Arab world a democracy and then we have the Iraq issue --

ROTH: Well, they're having a big election there.

I've got to get final comments in from others. Gentlemen, James Zogby, briefly.

ZOGBY: In the polling that we've done, they want help from America, but the kind of help they want is not the help we're offering. They don't want us involved in their internal affairs. They don't see us as --

ROTH: Us meaning America --

ZOGBY: America, yes.

ROTH: -- not pollsters.

ZOGBY: They don't see us as having the moral authority or credibility to be the advocates for democracy or social change in the region, but one of the things we can do that I think Karen Hughes will address is the issue of visa's, which have become a huge problem and impediment to relationships with a whole lot of people in the region. It has become the treatment we mete out to Arabs and Muslims who want to come to America, has almost come to a level of equaling the administration created by Iraq and Palestinian.

TELHAMI: You know, the findings in my own survey with Zogby International is that the vast majority of people in the Arab world do not believe that the United States is seeking real democracy in the Middle East. The majority says democracy is not what is propelling American forces in Iraq.

AL-HADIDI: I agree. I fully agree to that.

ROTH: Well, we've found something everyone can agree on. I feel inadequate. I didn't do my own polling. I don't have a poll to present.

But I've got to thank all of our guests. Shibley Telhami, on the left; in there, Lamees Al-Hadidi, thank you, in the middle of our picture; and on the right, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. Thank you all, wish we had more time.

The Karen Hughes voyage and our program here not the only forums for discussion on Western-Muslim relations. On Friday morning, an initiative called Hope Not Hate connected by video linkup students in Beirut with students in New York, Washington, Atlanta and Williamsburg, Virginia.

DIPLOMATIC LICENSE asked students at Columbia University, in New York, about bridging differences between two mindsets, even after the Hughes trip.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is just so much bad blood between them that I think a lot needs to be done, but at least it's a first step towards trying to engage them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It should be more of a grassroots effort on both sides and this would really work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem is much deeper than what a PR campaign can accomplish alone, and it's going to require change on both sides, the American side and the Muslim or Arabic side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My statement adheres completely to the position of the United States -- of the United Nations and of that -- that's a very common slip of the tongue.

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ROTH: Yes, it is. The United States and the United Nations are never more united than when public speakers tie them together in a slip of the diplomatic tongue. That's Alvaro DeSoto, the U.N.'s Middle East point man.

No such merging between United States and United Nations in title or trust as witnessed in another Congressional hearing in Washington. The U.S. legislators called the American ambassador and the U.N. secretary- general's chief of staff to describe what the recent U.N. 60th Anniversary Summit accomplished and meant for the future. But all of you U.N. agencies out there, you may want to listen to U.S. Ambassador Bolton as he raised the idea of changing the way countries would contribute funds to the United Nations.

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JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: In looking at the performance of some of the agencies in the U.N. system that are funded by voluntary contributions, they tend to be most efficient and most responsive to the priorities of the major contributors. You think of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. Development Program, the World Food Program, that I think it is worth careful study on a results-oriented basis of agencies funded by assessed versus voluntary contributions.

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ROTH: An all voluntary plan would mean nations could pick and choose which programs they support. Critics reply that method would destroy the U.N. system. Bolton says it would help accountability.

Later, Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to Kofi Annan, disagreed with a U.S. congressman who said the United Nations does everything and nothing and does so expensively.

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MARK MALLOCH BROWN, U.N. CHIEF OF STAFF: I would just really urge you to look at the 16 peacekeeping operations around the world, which involve 80,000 troops and a very large civilian contingent as well, and you will see that any comparison of unit costs, and I think particularly comparisons made by the Rand Corporation here in the United States, to unit costs of that versus U.S. peacekeeping, and you'll find that we're actually the Barney's (ph) Basement of peacekeeping. We are extremely cheap and in fact some of us think we probably need to invest a bit more in it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: I bought this shirt at that fine store.

The hearing in Congress this week was John Bolton's first since the bruising confirmation proceedings earlier this year. This time, Bolton was treated more kindly. One congressman said Bolton had achieved rock-star status among staff members. And as his testimony ended, even the leading democratic member of the panel, Tom Lantos, seemed to promote Bolton despite the presence of the Republican chair of the session.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ambassador. You knew it was coming. There is something sticking in my back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Here on the program there are some stories I feel guilty we haven't talked about. One of them is bird flu. Millions of birds have been destroyed. Big poultry losses in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. This virus, which infects people who come into contact with infected birds, has killed 66 human beings in four Asian countries in the last two years.

But the virus has yet to mutate into something that can be passed from human to human, and that's when the death toll could become enormous.

Several planning sessions to prepare for a potential worldwide outbreak are scheduled for Washington next week and Ottawa later this month. If you haven't paid attention, brace yourself for the prediction of the newly appointed U.N. coordinator on bird flu, who sees a pandemic soon.

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DR. DAVID NABARRO, U.N.: Let's say the range of deaths could be anything between 5 and 150 million, which is a range that is often quoted at me. I believe that the work we're doing over the next few months on prevention and preparedness will make the difference between, for example, whether the next pandemic leads us in the direction of 150 or in the direction of 5. So our effectiveness will be directly measured in lives saved and the consequences for the world. So we see this as a pretty big responsibility.

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ROTH: In Geneva, the World Health Organization on Friday distanced itself from any estimated death toll, saying it would be impossible to estimate. The last flu epidemic broke out in 1918 and killed 40 million people.

David Nabarro will coordinate bird flu response out of New York. Priorities, he says, are prevention, preparedness and readiness for a potential pandemic.

Hard to say it, but enjoy your weekend. That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.

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