Finally, the Neocons Are Sinking

As the George W. Bush administration struggles through its last two years in office, it appears that the agenda of neoconservative ideologues has finally lost its appeal among strategic parts of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus.

But as their influence has waned at the Pentagon and State Department, neo-conservative hawks have taken charge on the battlefield of public diplomacy.

Intent on fixing what American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Joshua Muravchik termed Bush's "public diplomacy mess," right-wing hawks have gained control of the weapons in the "war of ideas" -- U.S. government-funded and supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA), Al-Hurra, and Radio Farda, which broadcast to the Middle East and aim to offer an alternative view of the news.

The recent appointment of Jeffrey Gedmin, a veteran neo-conservative polemicist, as the director of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE), and a smear campaign that led to the recent resignation of Larry Register, Al-Hurra's former news director, appears to herald a turn towards more ideologically rigid programming.

As a result, viewers and listeners of U.S.-supported media in the Middle East are being exposed to a tougher ideological line that endorses the hallmarks of the neoconservative agenda -- regime change and interventionist policies in the region.

"No group other than neocons is likely to figure out how to do that," wrote Muravchik, in a December 2006 article in Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Operation Comeback", a reference to the declining influence of neo-conservatives in the Bush administration. "We are, after all, a movement whose raison d'etre was combating anti-Americanism in the United States. Who better then to combat it abroad?"

In a widely-circulated email memo sent to White House advisor Karl Rove in July 2006, the former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich also criticised the State Department's inability to manage the information campaign advocating U.S. foreign policy interests in the region.

He called on Karen Hughes, undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department, to "run the information operation aimed at delegitimising Syria, Iran and Hezbollah every day."

Earlier this year, a report authored by Ladan Archin, head of the Pentagon's Iran directorate who, in the run-up to the Iraq War, worked in the agency's controversial Office of Special Plans, charged that both VOA's Persian TV service and Radio Farda, a Persian-language radio station that broadcasts from Prague and Washington, were too soft in the their criticism of Iran's regime.

Archin's report, which was obtained by the McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau, complained that, while VOA's Persian TV service "often invites guests who defend the Islamic Republic's version of issues, it consistently fails to maintain a balance by inviting informed guests who represent another perspective on the same issue."

With the neo-conservative drums beating inside the Washington Beltway, the reshuffling of key positions at REF and Al-Hurra came as no surprise.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced in February a major initiative to promote democracy in Iran, including 50 million dollars to increase Persian-language television broadcasts.

Congress also appropriated 21.4 million dollars to expand VOA's Persian television programming to 12 hours a day, and 14.7 million dollars more for Radio Farda (which means "Tomorrow" in Farsi).

In early 2007, the Broadcasting Board of Governor's chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson, named Gedmin, a former AEI fellow and a founding member, along with Vice President Dick Cheney and former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, of the Project for a New American Century, as RFE's director. Gedmin's new job gave him control over Radio Farda and Voice of America. Some listeners have since noted changes in the tone and content of their programming.