KAREN HUGHES

by RAY FLEMING
KAREN Hughes is an extremely able woman who has been given an impossible job by President Bush. During his first administration she was one of his closest aides but left in order, yes, to spend more time with her family. Now she has been recalled to take charge of the programme for “public diplomacy”, a title which really means public relations for the United States abroad. Ms Hughes is the third person to hold this job in a little over two years. The main task for public diplomacy at the moment is to persuade influential people in neutral countries in the Middle East that the United States is not the monster its opponents claim it to be and that its fundamental interest in the region is the establishment of peace and stability. The obvious obstacles to getting any widespread acceptance of this message are the war in Iraq and Israel's intransigence over the peace plan for a settlement with the Palestinians. Ms Hughes has decided to begin her task by visiting the Middle East and talking face-to-face with opinion formers and representatives of the main communities. Over the past week or so she has been in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, telling the people she met that back home she is a “a mom”, that she has the vote and values the freedom to drive her own car. The women in her audience in Saudi Arabia told her that they did not feel discriminated against because they could not vote or drive, or because they wear the head-to-foot covering known as the abaya. Ms Hughes is not the first American woman to visit Muslim countries and imply to the women they meet that they are the victims of male chauvism and that the Western way is better. Muslim woman do not necessarily see it that way. If Karen Hughes wants to create a better image and more understanding of America in Muslim countries the first thing she must do is to drop the assumption that the way the United States does things is the best and only way.Her problem, however, will be to persuade her boss to see her task in that way.