The panel discussion sponsored by the Washington Institute last week (see below) lasted about an hour and a half, but it could have gone on much longer. There were still many questions to hash out among Marc Lynch, Rob Satloff, and me (not to mention the distinguished audience). In his blog yesterday, Marc raises a matter that would have disputed spiritedly if I had had the time (or space). I do now. Lynch writes:

“The ‘war of ideas’ and the emphasis on ‘combatting violent extremism’ represent a dangerously narrow focus for America’s engagement with the Islamic world, one which the Obama administration has already begun to reverse.  The focus on violent extremism, while important, presents a far too narrow conception of America’s interests in the Arab and Muslim worlds.”

Lynch makes it sound as if the only way that public diplomacy during my tenure engaged with the “Islamic world” was through anti-violence and anti-extremism activities related to the war of ideas. That’s ridiculous.

In fact, when I was Under Secretary I had only a few million dollars and virtually no personnel dedicated to the war of ideas in Muslim nations. Comapre those resources to the two entire bureaus — International Information Programs and Education and Cultural Affairs — that concentrated on traditional public diplomacy (though, of course, IIB and ECA programs also had war-of-ideas ramifications).

The vast majority of our enagement activities with Muslims involved public diplomacy as it has been practiced for 60 years. For example, we funded a dozen after-school programs to teach English in Gaza and the West Bank alone — the superb Access Microscholarship Program, which was inaugurated in Morocco by Margaret Tutwiler after the Casablanca bombings The program has taught English to 44,000 kids in 55 countries, mostly with Muslim majorities, since 2004. As I recall, we’re spending $20 million a year on the Microscholarships — that’s more than three times the entire amount my office had for war of ideas activities. In Morocco alone, 900 students participate at about $2,000 each.

Practically everyone in the world wants to learn English, and by teaching it, we also tell America’s story. When I was in Ramallah, for instance, I saw kids learning about Black History Month and Thanksgiving. Many of the Microscholarship students graduate to the YES program, which is also Muslim-nation-focused. YES this year will bring 1,000 high schools to the United States on exchanges for the full academic year. The students live with American families and attend high schools around the nation. This one program — with which I am deeply in love — requires more funding than all of the war of ideas activities that I supported at State.

Then, there are Fulbrights — again with significant focus on Muslim nations. Pakistan alone sends 140 scholars a year here, at a cost (I am estimating) of about $4 million. I can’t remember the budget for the excellent america.gov Arabic website, but it is a significant number compared with what’s spent on focused war of ideas activities. And don’t forget sports programs, like the one that brought the Iranian national basketball team and Moroccan girls’ soccer teams to the United States. And what about the Broadcasting Board of Governors? Money spent on Alhurra, Radio Sawa, and broadcasting in Farsi, Urdu, and Pashto exceed by a factor of 20 (again, I am estimatng) the war of ideas efforts I led at State.

It is, in short, nonsense to contend that there was a “dangerously narrow focus” to the Bush Administration’s approach to the “Muslim world.”

And, by the way, as Rob Satloff continually points out, it’s not a world, and we shouldn’t say it is. It is, instead, more than one billion people, with different interests from different backgrounds, in countries ranging from India to Indonesia to Iran to Egypt to the United States, all sharing a religion but not necessarily a great deal else.

What I tried to do was shfit the emphasis of our activities in the direction of anti-terror activity. I did not curtail any traditional, long-term public diplomacy programs. I have always admired these effort. What we did was to drop a pebble into the ocean of public diplomacy. It’s surprising how many waves were created.

Tags: Access Microscholarship, Fulbright Scholarship, Marc Lynch, Margaret Tutwiler, Rob Satloff, YES program