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Diplomat justifies US intervention in Muslim societies

14/09/2008

The United States cannot be a spectator in the struggle for power going on in Muslim societies around the world, a senior diplomat has said.

James Glassman, the Bush administration's under-secretary of state for public diplomacy, told a Chatham House audience in London he has refocused his remit away from improving the US' "image" abroad and towards combating "violent extremism".

"Our mission is highly focused – create an environment hostile to violent extremism. Our challenge is to ensure that negative sentiment does not manifest itself through violent extremism," he said.

Despite only having been a diplomat for three months, Mr Glassman says he fully understands the needs of the "war of ideas".

The problem is an acute one: 23 per cent of Germans still believe that the US government is responsible for 9/11 and 20 per cent of Jordanians express "confidence" in Osama Bin Laden.

Despite this Mr Glassman remains confident that progress against al-Qaida, which he describes as a "death cult" which "contains the seeds of its own destruction", can be made through active persuasion of "foreign publics".

Mr Glassman says it is more pragmatic to focus on "diverting substantial sectors of society away from violent extremism" than winning hearts and minds.

The former journalist outlined a series of strategies used by the US government to get its message across. International information programmes, education and cultural affairs programmes and "ideological engagement" are used alongside international broadcasting, which has seen its weekly audience increase by three-quarters this century.

He finished: "What we and our allies recognise is there is a complex struggle going on in Muslim societies for power. We cannot be idle bystanders in this battle."