Act now, or…

Upon hearing that Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes would soon step down as the head of public diplomacy at the State Department, I recalled this telling story. Hughes said that hers was "the work of generations." She was right, indeed. Her boss from Texas managed to lose the respect and sympathy of generations of Muslims. And only generations of work by Americans can lead to a recovery from it. Had the pollsters not chosen only adults as their respondents, this could have been proven scientifically. Take the case of Turkish children's anti-Bush game.

Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center, which conducts polls in Muslim countries, told The Associated Press, "Over the course of her term, the image of the United States has not improved among Muslim countries and, in fact, in some Muslim countries, particularly Turkey, it has become markedly less positive." A recent study by Pew found the percentage of Turks who have a favorable view of the US to be only 9 percent. In 2000, the same poll revealed that number in Turkey was then 50 percent. That was before Mr. Bush's term as president. Only the genius (!) of a Bush White House would appoint someone such as Madam Hughes, who is so closely associated with one of the most globally unpopular presidents -- if not the most -- with the hope of improving the US image. And only it would be naïve enough to believe that without modifying the foreign policies which hurt Muslims most, a gentle lady's touch would make a serious difference.

Hughes told AP that in her travels, the Muslims and Arabs she spoke to generally raised the issue of the Iraq war only after mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She said she advised President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that resolving the latter conflict would do more than anything to improve the American standing among Muslims. Bingo! I assume Hughes probably must have told her superiors that resolving the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) conflict in northern Iraq would do more than anything else to improve the American standing in Turkey. And looking at the situation on the ground, it seems such advice falls upon deaf ears.

Why is that so? Because improving the US image has never been a top priority for the Bush administration. In fact, just as their diplomacy can be summarized with the infamous Bush quote "You are either with us or against us," the following phrase can probably best represent their public diplomacy: "You must either like us, or be like us."

Take the Turkish case. Turkey is under a far greater threat of terrorism from northern Iraq than the US is from al-Qaeda. Short of allowing US troop deployments in Turkish territory, Ankara did everything else possible to help American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite deep public reluctance. What they ask in return from a supposed NATO ally is that it do something visible and concrete in northern Iraq. Believe me -- even something of symbolic proportions could have been enough to cool much steam in Turkey. But the self-centric Bush team's attitude toward many allies has been "You either help us, or help us." They don't give a damn about the Turkish official and public demands that have been repeated for years now. Turkey has been pushed to the verge of war because Americans insist on collaborating with Iraqi Kurdish leadership clearly harboring the PKK.

Why do you think Turkish people are now seeing the US as the number-one threat to their country? Principally because they believe -- looking at their indifference -- that the US supports and harbors the PKK. Instead of doing anything security-wise to ease these concerns, the Bush administration has used every possible public diplomacy tool to calm Turkey down. Frankly, I don't have much reason to believe the latest high-level traffic will yield satisfactory results, either. Even if something comes out of Washington, it will be too little, too late. This is the atmosphere preceding Rice's visit to Turkey and next week's Bush-Erdoğan meeting at the White House.

Here is what former US ambassador to Turkey, now with the Brookings Institution, Mark Parris says, and I agree: ''It is frankly hard to see, given the depth of mistrust that Washington's temporizing on the PKK issue has generated in Turkey, what Ms. Rice will be able to say to prepare the ground for a civil, much less positive, Bush-Erdoğan meeting. Short of an outright commitment to take direct action against PKK camps [possibly with Turkish participation], the secretary will likely find her interlocutors skeptical that the quite remarkable restraint they have displayed over three years of mounting terror should be extended.''

It is nonsense talking about preserving so-called stability in northern Iraq when attitudes in Washington, Baghdad and Arbil now threaten stability in Turkey. It is high time for the Bush administration to stop putting Turkey off by public diplomacy tactics. Act now, otherwise you might find many more upcoming Turkish generations play the "US is the enemy" game as children, if not also as adults in the future...