In March 2005, Bush adviser Karen Hughes was named to a State Department post, Deputy Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. In late September 2005 she traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to open a dialogue with important Muslim countries. Her task was to persuade them that Bush’s War on Terror was not a War against Islam.
On September 26, 2005, Hughes met with a small group of Egyptians who had studied in the U.S. She told them “it’s sometimes hard to talk about difficult issues,” but that “we’re open to ideas.”
Prominent Egyptians told Hughes that the U.S. can improve its image in the Middle East only by changing its policies, namely, that its policies on Iraq, Iran, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what the U.S. said was inconsistent with its [favorable] treatment of repressive Arab governments.
Hughes second stop was Saudi Arabia, On September 27, 2018, she told a group of Saudi women that they could be like her and have the right to drive and wear pretty clothes.
The Saudi women harshly criticized her for denouncing their culture and trying to force change on Saudi society. They told her that Saudi women were happy and did not like the image of unhappy Saudi women portrayed in the American media. These remarks met with applause from female colleagues dressed in the black abaya.
Next stop was Turkey. In a September 28, 2005, meeting with Turkish women active in non-governmental organizations, Hughes was harshly criticized due to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
Hughes trip was a total failure. But the fault was that of Bush and his foreign policy team, not Hughes. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Egypt to talk about human rights. After a speech at the American University of Cairo on June 20, 2005, she got an earful from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
In October 2007, Karen Hughes resigned her position and returned to private business.
Bush, Rice, and Hughes were steeped in the paradigm of Western democracy. It was inconceivable to them that Middle East residents were not equally keen on American political institutions, practices, and values. Bush’s vision of a just war in Iraq to promote democracy was in marked opposition to views held by the region’s major powers.
Diversity and Inclusion
Every U.S. college and university adheres to the doctrine that Diversity and Inclusion of students, faculty, and staff is essential for educated Americans to interact productively in their political, economic, and social relations with foreigners of different racial, religious, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, gender, tribal, social, economic, and other distinguishing characteristics. Diversity and Inclusion further stipulates that interaction between different groups must take place under respectful conditions in which the values, ideas, and contributions of each group are made to feel welcome and equally valued.
No prominent individual has been able to persuade university leaders and faculty that the doctrine of Diversity and Inclusion on which all of U.S. higher education is predicated could possibly be wrong in any way.
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Foreign policy cannot be constructively conducted in a world driven by U.S. based identity politics that precludes FBR. It must go wrong. Think George W. Bush and Iraq. Think Barack Obama and Libya and Syria.
Politics in Plural Societies
Only now, that leftist intellectuals have rediscovered identity politics in the wake of President Trump’s presumed White-backlash election victory over Hillary Clinton, has identity politics come to the fore. The democracy school encompassing over 90% of U.S. political scientists has been trying to show that democracy is an unstoppable force spreading around the world, transcending group differences.
Full article: U.S. Foreign Policy Faces Grave Danger, Part 5 (Thoughtful Ideas)
Global Geopolitics 