Karen Hughes, the new head of public diplomacy for the Bush administration, came back from the Middle East last month chastened by the communications chasm looming between the region’s public and ourselves. She had seen firsthand that there are few quick fixes in the Middle East. But we do have one simple option that could move us a big step forward: Teaching our diplomats to speak Arabic. At a time when the US government has an urgent need both to understand what’s being said in the Arab world and to express our own views clearly, surely every US Embassy in the Mideast is staffed with at least several American diplomats who speak Arabic, right? Well, no. Four years after 9/11, we’re still a very long way from achieving this fundamental goal, as the State Department’s internal perform.
Policy is not the problem: State Department planning documents call for increased Arabic language capabilities in the Foreign Service. The problem is that the way we’re going about meeting this goal guarantees failure.
To understand why requires a safari into the bureaucratic undergrowth, so grab your machete. The Foreign Service classifies language ability into five levels, with ‘’1’’ being the lowest (able to handle only the very simplest social situations) and ‘’5’’ the highest (a level rarely assigned to anyone but a native speaker).
From a public diplomacy standpoint, the key distinction is between a ‘’3’’ and a ‘’4.’’ We have a fairly good supply of 3s in Arabic, almost 200 as of August 2004 (the latest State Department data available). A level 3 can handle one-on-one situations, or something like a ministry meeting in a subject area they know well. But a level 3 speaker would flounder in a complex situation. If you put a 3 in a public meeting where many excited people are speaking on top of one another, for example, or in a coffee shop conversation arguing about religion and the state, he or she would be lost. But these are precisely the kinds of situations that our Middle East diplomats must be equipped to handle.
Speaking, moreover, is generally harder than listening. No responsible person would ask a 3 to speak before an unfriendly crowd at the local university (or at the embassy gates), much less put a 3 in front of a television camera and expect a clear, engaging and cogent discussion of US Middle East policy in Arabic. For that you need a 4, and preferably a 4+ or a 5. So how many of these 4 and 5 level speakers do we have in Arabic? As of August 2004-27. At the highest levels (4+ and 5), we have a grand total of eight individuals worldwide.
There are two ways to field more diplomats with solid Arabic skills in the short term: Hire more Americans who already speak Arabic, especially mid-career Arab-Americans with real fluency and professional skills, or upgrade our existing stock of 3s by instituting much broader and deeper on-the-job language training, both in Washington and in our embassies.
The first option sounds promising. But strong disincentives, from poor pay to tight budgets and widespread Arab-American doubts regarding US Mideast policy, stand in the way of a rapid buildup in Arab American diplomats. So what is the solution?
First, we should allocate funds for part-time, on-the-job advanced language instruction at post and in Washington, targeting 3s and up. Second, we should make language training mandatory at all Middle Eastern posts and build it into the workload. Third, we should make sustained progress toward fluency an evaluation factor for all Foreign Service officers assigned to the region. And fourth, we should reward advanced fluency (3+ and above) with a pay premium, regardless of whether the diplomat in question is assigned to a language-designated post.
