The Tweet Heard 'Round Tehran: A New Channel of Public Diplomacy

Guest post by Jessie Daniels, a Truman National Security Project fellow:

As we watch with interest the events unfolding in Iran, one of the major stories dominating the headlines is the Twitter effect. Twitter, and other new media, have given a global voice to the angst over the elections and have made the intensity of those marching in Tehran palpable to those sitting on the couch watching halfway around the world. Most importantly, the social networking phenomenon has undermined the Iranian regime’s attempts to isolate its country from the rest of the world and has, perhaps, opened a new chapter of informal public diplomacy efforts.

Despite the regime’s efforts to prevent the outside world from witnessing the post-election ramifications, new media sites continue to provide the most up-to-date information on the events in Iran. Moreover, these sites have become forums not only for reporting but also for advocacy. For example, tweeters on Twitter have been urged to turn their avatars green in solidarity with the Iranian protesters.

The increased attention has also highlighted the complications faced by the regime as it tries to effectively counter the public reaction to the election results. The regime’s dismissive rhetoric, which often plays well when denouncing the West, has instead stoked the flames of internal dissent. After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared the protests to the “passions after a soccer match,” members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green armbands during a World Cup qualifier in protest. Efforts to blame the United States and Israel for improper meddling seem to fall on deaf ears as the protests continue to resonate.

Events in Iran have sparked a debate here at home about what the U.S. should be doing in response. Some assert that the administration should openly and actively encourage the protesters in Iran while others believe that we should stay out of the process. Regardless of where one falls on this spectrum, though, these events already illustrate the power of a new public diplomacy channel present in new media venues.

As opposed to formal public diplomacy measures, such as educational and cultural exchanges, social networking sites like Twitter provide a way to informally connect people. These small-scale efforts could have long-ranging benefits. Right now, the American public is getting a glimpse of the Iranian public and gaining an understanding of what drives them, what they are fighting for, and how they are expressing their dissent. The Iranian protesters are also aware that they have a global audience, including those watching in the United States. Although the Iranian and American publics have been kept apart for three decades, new media may be helping to debunk stereotypes in each country that have been built up since the 1979 revolution.

In this paradigm, government works best when it works to ensure that free and open dialogue continues. Doing so can help to pave the way toward increased support for further engagement at higher levels. There will likely be opportunities for the administration to capitalize on this situation as it pushes forth with direct engagement. Already, however, social networking has gone far beyond allowing high school buddies to keep in touch. With a significant percentage of the population in Iran younger than 30, this method of connecting the Iranian and American publics could eventually lead to a level of engagement and understanding that is beyond the realm of formal public diplomacy.

Originally posted on The Moderate Voice and The Reaction.

Photo by Sinistra e Liberta.

Ian Bremmer's Top Ten Political Risks for 2009

Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer just released the firm's top ten political risks for 2009. We will feature a panel discussing the ethical implications of these risks with Ian Bremmer, Michele Wucker, and Art Kleiner next week, on Jan. 13, at the Carnegie Council. Sign up for the event at gpievents@cceia.org.

Here is how Ian summarizes the top risks for the year:

First, we’ll see more state intervention in the global economy. Second, that intervention will be both reactive and uncoordinated by a series of local, regional, and national political actors who have decidedly non-global (and in many cases non-market) views of the cost/benefit equations that attend their policy decisions. In short, politics will drive the global economy more directly, and more inefficiently, in the coming year than at any point since World War II.

Below, we present a truncated excerpt of the ten risks:

1. Congress - Political risks have historically been most important for economic outcomes in emerging markets, but that’s not so this year. The current financial crisis has created an unprecedented space for government interference in economic affairs within developed states, as well. Nowhere is that more true than in Washington.

2. South Asia Security - The security environment in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan will deteriorate significantly over the coming year, and the United States and Europe will find themselves more directly involved in conflicts in all three states, with little benefit to show for it, by the end of 2009.

3. Iran/Israel - The likelihood of the United States launching strikes against Iran has diminished considerably over the past two years, due both to internal policy wrangling between Vice President Dick Cheney and others within the Bush administration and the election of Barack Obama as president. But 2009 is the critical year for conflict (both direct and through proxies) between Iran and Israel.

4. Russia - We enter 2009 with Russia in play in a way we haven’t seen in decades. The relevant comparison isn’t 1998, when the Russians engaged in default and devaluation but remained within the bounds of their existing political and economic system (as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back). The history to consider is 1989—as key aspects of the Russian system could change for the worse.

5. Iraq - Frankly, Iraq at number five is a good news story. With about 140,000 American troops remaining on the ground and no serious evolution of the Iraqi political model, it’s a testament to the relative improvements of security that Iraq has managed to claw its way away from a risk that keeps the world on edge.

6. Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez has made a habit of miscalculation over the years, but this may be the big one. His plans for a referendum in the coming month to reform the Venezuelan constitution and abolish term limits (which would allow Chavez to run again for the presidency in 2012) show little likelihood of success. Then the Venezuelan president will have a real political fight on his hands.

7. Mexico - While Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe has effectively won his country’s war against the drug cartels, the same can’t be said of Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon. The security situation there has worsened and is almost certain to deteriorate further over the course of 2009. Well armed and well financed narco-criminals have effectively declared war on the state of Mexico—increasingly singling out elected government officials, bureaucrats, and the armed forces and police for their attacks. As the government continues to rely on the military to go after the drug lords, the bloodshed will continue.

8. Ukraine - As I mentioned, Ukraine isn’t likely to spur the kind of direct military conflict we saw last August in Georgia. But it merits a slot in our top risks because of the government’s inability to deal effectively with the severe challenges posed by the current financial crisis and economic downturn—and one certainly not helped by its volatile relationship with Moscow.

9. Turkey - Speaking of internal distractions, Turkey is essentially defining the problem. The country has all sorts of factors in its favor—a diversified economy, strong demographics, an extremely favorable trade route geography, and solid ties with both western countries and its Middle Eastern neighbors. Yet the fight pitting secularists in the judiciary, military, and industry against Islamists in government is becoming a serious obstacle to economic advancement. And the AK party leadership, feeling that it increasingly carries the weight of popular support on its side, is unwilling to compromise—instead, casting out potential dissent from within the party (and losing critical bureaucratic competence as a result). To make matters worse, the AK party has long lost its reformist spirit and has embraced a more nationalist attitude, making it more difficult to find a solution to the thorny Kurdish question.

10. South Africa - Rounding out the top risks for 2009 is South Africa. Upcoming elections will dominate the news, but it’s more political context than electoral results that will cause concern. It’s pretty clear that the African National Congress (ANC) will keep its majority in parliament, though the emergence of a new splinter party will reduce its numbers. In principal, that’s not a bad development; popular concerns over the ANC’s abuse of power should be reduced accordingly. But the transition is going to be hard on the ANC leadership—with South Africa’s legislators having to accept the need to cooperate with political opponents, rather than using political influence to force would-be dissidents into line. The initial reaction is likely to be a lack of patience and tolerance, undermining public confidence in South Africa’s political institutions...and providing little comfort to investors.

Notice China instability, the Persian Gulf, and climate change are not on the list. Ian sees these as either red herrings or, in climate change's case, longer term developments.

Bill Bradley on Foreign Policy

Former Senator Bill Bradley spoke this morning at the Carnegie Council about his new book The New American Story. This talk was the first we broadcast on multiple radio stations. We also filmed it for video clips that will be coming out later.

Bradley’s main point was that an old American story has taken root in the U.S. national conversation that is obscuring the original American story that values two things: a can-do attitude and telling the truth. As he says in his book, we have to embrace an “ethic of connectedness:” collective action and individual responsibility.

He gave numerous examples. Jody Williams, for example, got a few average Americans together to launch a global movement to ban landmines. She won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts.

The former Senator also suggested that the United States needs a fairer energy policy. If the United States were able to reach the fuel efficiency of cars driven in Europe, we would be able to eliminate oil imported from OPEC countries. He also recommended more accountability: people who buy fuel inefficient cars, such as Hummers, should be taxed and those who buy fuel efficient cars should get rebates. It’s not a tax on the rich. It's simply an incentive for efficiency.

The final question from the audience focused on foreign policy: How should the United States approach Iran and Russia? Bradley suggested more talk with Iran—after all talking to your enemies is the definition of diplomacy.

Russia seemed to be a topic close to the Senator’s heart. He slammed the expansion of NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union. Bradley recently spoke with Mikhail Gorbachev, who said U.S. officials had promised an expansion would not happen. Moreover, as Bradley put it, the key to diplomacy is not to kick a man when he is down. My professor at SAIS Michael Mandelbaum was a sharp critic of NATO expansion. You can read a transcript of him talking about it with Jim Lehrer in 1996 on NewsHour here. Here is an excerpt:

I think it [expansion] will re-divide Europe where Europe is now not divided. Second, it will poison our relations with the Russians, perhaps not irrevocably. The Russians are not going to refuse to speak to us. But already, the kind of close cooperation that we enjoyed during the Gulf War and made it possible for President Clinton to pick up the phone, ask President Yeltsin to remove Russian troops from the Baltic states, and have him exceed to his request, that kind of close cooperation is gone.

And that was how Bradley ended the talk: Think about the kind of mutual benefit we could be sharing with Russia given the world’s problems today: energy, climate change, oil. If there were more trust between these two big countries, the cooperation would benefit from their complementarities.