If there is much to cheer about in changing military fortunes in Iraq, that cannot necessarily be said of our "public diplomacy" efforts--the term given for good propaganda. The U.S. Created Al Hurra television to compete with Al Jazeera and to make up for the mushiness of Voice of America. The new U.S. funded station is based in Virginia but reports and broadcasts to the Middle East in Arabic.

The sad thing seems to be that the new effort has succumbed to the same kind of bland programming that people trained in Hollywood and Madison Avenue wrongly suppose matters in Iraq or elsewhere in Arabic lands. The same problem apparently obtains in U.S. programs aimed at Iran.

Of course, you will get higher ratings for pop culture than for hard news and opinion about the political and military realities of the region, but so, what? Arabs know all about our pop culture--too much, probably. They are tempted to it even as they are repulsed by it. Indeed, a sad condition of America's image overseas is that we represent the novel and sensational in both a good and bad way. Modernity (as expressed in the West's edgy entertainment) has visceral appeal even as it leaves a bitter aftertaste in traditional cultures. It may get viewers. What it does not get is understanding and allies for America.

I have heard quiet comments about this problem from friends in and out of the Bush Administration. Some point to particular appointees who are naïve or who are easily rolled by the bureaucrats. What I have not seen are very many careful analyses of what we are doing and not doing in this field. I cannot report on it myself, so I am just leaving out the names I have heard. I'm not a reporter.

But what about the people who ARE reporters?

The liberal media doesn't report on the effectiveness of U.S. public diplomacy because they don't see any significance to it or else don't especially want the U.S. to look better, in any case. But what is holding up the conservative media?

Al Qaida knows full well that American public opinion is a second battleground for it. But so is opinion in the Middle East. If Iraqis and others learn what really is going on they are more likely to help the Americans. But if what they mainly get on TV are attacks on the U.S. by foreign radicals and hip hop from Americans, what are they supposed to
think?

A failure to take public diplomacy very seriously is a huge wartime disservice to our fighting men and women because it damages the cause of victory. The President himself has too much riding on the Iraq war to let this aspect of his strategy be affected by personal loyalties, or, worse, inattention.