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 by Brian Milstein Submitted originally as a final paper for the course "Media and Micro-politics," Spring 2002, at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Instructor Cite as: Milstein, Brian. "The Crown Prince in Texas: A Study on Publicity and Contingency in International Relations." Unpublished paper, New School for Social Research, New York (accessed on [DATE] at http://magictheatre.panopticweb.com/aesthetics/writings/abdullah.html). On April 24th, 2002, The New York Times published an article delineating President Bush's plans for his next-day meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The meeting was to raise issues surrounding the ongoing "War against Terror," the involvement of Saudi citizens in the September 11th hijacking, possible future action against Iraq, and Abdullah's recent proposal to end ongoing violence in the Middle East. Bush was to deliver a "blunt message" to the crown prince that the Arab world must face up to its responsibilities to curb violence and extremism in the region. The meeting was to be a reaffirmation of the role of the United States as the leading power in an international campaign against rogue states and terrorist forces. According to Thomas Friedman (2002), Bush was to "reclaim" the future of the Middle East by "speaking the truth to them and their societies." Yet, on the 25th, this was not what transpired. Another Times article the morning of the Crawford talks stated that "a person familiar with the Saudi's thinking" asserted that U.S.-Saudi relations would be seriously jeopardized if Bush did not moderate his apparently unconditional support of the policies of Israel's Sharon administration, and said that the Saudis were considering using the "oil weapon" if the United States remained adamant (Tyler 2002a). Although the Saudi government repeatedly denied any such intention, the insertion of its possibility and its effects into the American mind set was immediately noticeable in the world oil market as well as on news programs across the country. This new element of urgency seemed to derail Bush's agenda to such an extent that one reporter commented, "The meeting today seemed primarily a chance for the Saudis to lecture the American president..." (Bumiller 2002). While the Bush administration downplayed the fact that the encounter did not go as planned, and while Bush himself stated he would continue to support Israeli security interests, his tone in the days following the meeting changed noticeably. He immediately called for the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the West Bank (Kannapell 2002). He appealed to Congress to hold off on a resolution announcing continued support of "Israel's fight against terrorism" (The Associated Press 2002b). Most interestingly, there was, for the first time, talk of sending American and British "monitors" to the area, for which Bush obtained agreement from both the Israelis and Palestinians within days (Tyler 2002c; Tyler 2002d). As of April 24th, these initiatives on the part of the Bush administration were all but unthinkable, particularly given the tone of its policies since September 2001. How does the leader of a so-called "second-world country" compel such a change in foreign policy in the world's strongest superpower in less than a week? This paper is intended as an inquiry into some of the factors that compose what we see from day-to-day as "international diplomacy." Of special interest to me is the relationship between politics, the media, and public perceptions, and how these converge upon international relations -- not in the sense of broad historical currents, but in the sense of its day-to-day twists and turns. Crawford, to be sure, does not compare to a Yalta Conference or Camp David Accords. No fate of empires will hang in the balance, no decades-long standoff will be initiated or resolved. It is unlikely that Crawford will be looked back upon as the punctuation of anything large, and its effects may very well diminish from memory even in the coming months. Yet Crawford, I feel, provides a good example of the dynamics that play into a diplomatic encounter, and therefore makes a good point-of-focus for entertaining diplomacy as interaction. Diplomacy is more than the articulation of raison d'etat by the statesman or the rational-choice bean-counting of the political scientist. It employs and displays innumerable micro-tactics of posturings, stagings, fumblings, and regroupings on the part of public figures who must pursue the interests of their state while remaining "answerable to the people" through the channels of mass-media. This paper, in its engagement with various aspects of international diplomacy and its relation to public media, will be presented in a somewhat "mosaic" fashion whose pieces will fall loosely into the sequence of an argument. In the first section, I will discuss how heads of state are foremostly constituted as "public figures," and how their performances as such are conveyed to the public by way of the media. In the second, I will situate these public figures in the realm of international politics and entertain how this realm shapes the conduct of diplomatic meetings. In the third, I will consider the role of the public sphere and its relation to the affairs of state, as well as the "lines of contingency" that seem to be drawn when two such polities come into diplomatic confrontation. Finally, I will demonstrate how these elements play out in the case of the meeting at Crawford. | ||
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We should begin our analysis of international diplomacy by first looking at its "public" aspects. Heads of state, insofar as they are "answerable to the people," are aware that their words and actions are being observed and evaluated, and must regulate their behavior accordingly. Public figures must be able to give off what Goffman (1959) calls a "presentation of the self": political actors must confirm their roles as such by demonstrating their moral entitlement to the positions they have been granted by their audience (cf. 13). In other words, a "public" figure, such as George W. Bush or Colin Powell, is aware of the constant scrutiny he receives in the public eye; he must therefore place heightened controls on his behavior, appearance, and even the situations he allows himself to enter in order to uphold the outward image of himself as a competent actor. To employ Goffman's well-known phrase, he must project a definition of the situation. (a) For Goffman people as social beings are generally familiar with the forms of custom, demeanor, and decorum associated with particular settings of social engagement, and so smooth everyday interactions presume a kind of "working consensus" among participants regarding what is expected of them and what they are to expect from others (9-11). This implies that interaction is, loosely put, a controlled phenomenon: events can and do occur that disrupt or contradict the definition of the situation, and so participants must take precautions to control their presentations -- and even their environment -- as much as is necessary to insure against moments of potential confusion or embarrassment. Key to Goffman's analyses in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life are the ideas of a front and front region, which pertain to "that part of the individual's performance which regularly functions in a general or fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance" (22, 107). A front refers to the expressions given and given off by an individual to project a desired definition of a situation, via a certain repertoire of "appearances" and "manners" by which the individual comes to regulate his behavior. A front region is an interactive space constituted in such a way to facilitate the successful definition of a situation. For every front region there is usually a corresponding back region, defined by Goffman as "a place, relative to a given performance, where the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of course. ...It is here that the capacity of a performance to express something beyond itself may be painstakingly fabricated; it is here that illusions and impressions are openly constructed" (112). Joshua Meyrowitz (1985) draws on Goffman's observations to analyze the roles that mass media play in sculpting the social environment as a continuous flow of information. Drawing on Goffman's situationism, Meyrowitz argues that "media are not simply channels for conveying information between two or more environments, but rather environments in and of themselves" (16). Media, as a mechanism that shapes and delivers information in the matrix of its own environment, brings with it a complex of rules, customs, and expectations that correlate to the public figure's projected definition of the situation (Meyrowitz 1985, 24; cf. Goffman 1959). A situation is very much a system of information, and in order to project the desired situational definition, the actor must engage in "a kind of information game -- a potentially infinite cycle of concealment, discovery, false revelation, and rediscovery" (Meyrowitz 1985, 24; Goffman 1959, 8). Meyrowitz states that "authority" is something that is not possessed but performed: "To be perceived as a 'great leader,' one cannot simply be great, one must behave like a great person" (Meyrowitz 1985, 62). Meyrowitz makes two observations regarding the projection of situational definitions by politicians: first, that "political performers express their characters more directly and exclusively through the dominant forms of communication than do average citizens," and second, that "political drama is even more highly ritualistic than everyday social behavior" (276). A public figure, particularly one of high stature such as a president, must be extremely sensitive to the demands of the environments through which the public will receive him. He must project a certain confidence and mastery over the role he is taking on, and he and his aides must control for contingencies that threaten to contradict or confuse the situation as the figure wants to define it. Such projections, to be successful, employ a wide range of "front" and "back region" interplays. For Meyrowitz, the successful performance of "greatness" requires a "perfect stage" to facilitate a public figure's desired projection of the self: Over the years, Presidents have routinely engaged in techniques to dramatize their actions: saving or "making" news to keep the flow constant and consistent; timing news releases to match correspondents' schedules and vacations; circling over airports to assure "prime-time" television landings, polling advisors on appropriate telephone calls to be made; and presenting dramatic ultimatums that have been preceded by successful secret negotiations. (282-3) (b) We of course cannot know everything that goes on "back stage" to project President Bush's image of "greatness" (some commentators have said to the effect that Bush may require a somewhat larger "back stage" than some of his predecessors). We can, though, surmise what he and his aides must remain sensitive to by lending some consideration to how events are portrayed in the media. Meyrowitz believes that presidents are so attuned to the effects of the press that place as much effort in the advantageous "enunciation" of their policies as they do in framing it (283). It is generally recognized that most forms of news-reporting, electronic and print, present stories in terms of relatively small quanta of information: the article, the segment, the photograph, the clip, the sound-byte. Stories are often highly summarized, removed from contexts, or reduced to their cross-section. At the same time, these news quanta are packaged in such a way as to portray a complete story, with a who, a what, a when, a where, a why, and a how (ideally) -- and thus take the form of a kind of narrative. A full news broadcast or newspaper is composed of dozens to hundreds of such blocks of information. Drawing on structuralist approaches to literary criticism, George P. Landow (1997) designates the term lexia to refer to a potentially self-contained block of text which, when juxtaposed to other lexias contributes to the overall interpretation of the whole as a larger "de-centered" text or hypertext (25, 64, 77). While Landow is most directly referring to the hypertexts we encounter in computerized media (e.g., on the internet), we can also observe that newspapers and broadcasts fulfill the definition of hypertexts as well. What we find in this case is the translation of numerous events, statements, and images in the world into daily constellations of micro-narratives, each constituting a story in itself while fleeting past the eye or ear. More importantly, however, is the form of narrative that we find in news stories. The fact the all news stories are transformed by the news into the same micro-narrative formula (e.g., in the case of newspaper articles, fulfilling the "5W + 1H" guideline and structured as an "inverted pyramid" sequence from breadth to minutiae) means that all things reported share in the news a certain homogeneity in interpretive presentation. Things do not "happen" in the newspapers; they are "told." News reports and newspaper articles are not the mere conveyance of events, rather, they convey events restructured in a homogenized form of intelligible narratives sharing a common medium, a common space (a sheet of paper or a screen), and a common format. An earthquake in India and an off-hand comment about broccoli by a politician are presented in the news with the same basic structure of a news lexia. There is a sense in which things said and things done are reconstituted in news reporting as the same kind of event, and so a public figure must be aware that even a casual statement can have a comparable effect as a news story as anything capable of being spoken or written about in news. On the other hand, the constitution of news reports as lexias can be utilized by public figures as part of a strategy for defining situations. Press releases, sound-bytes, and manipulations of timed events can serve to define the actor's presence as a "man of resolve" or a larger-than-life figure, or set the "stage" for an upcoming event, such as the meeting in Crawford. As it happened, both President Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah employed just such a strategy in the days leading up to the meeting, each with a different intention to define the situation for the public and for each other. We will look into this aspect in greater detail below, but it would be useful to contextualize the meeting further by locating it in the practice of international relations. | ||
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In analyzing the processes that took place in constituting the meeting at Crawford, the role of news media is a crucial aspect in the definition of the situation. Yet George W. Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah are of course not just any two public figures engaging in interaction. They are heads of state of two sovereign nations, and they are both empowered and constrained to project themselves as the chief representatives of their respective states as autonomous members of an international community. International relations brings with it its own complex of rules and decorums, and it is these that we must also look at to gain understanding of Crawford. Alexander Wendt (1999) casts international actors as interlocutors sharing a common space -- the world community of states. Yet this community is not the one portrayed by traditional "realist" IR theory as an "anarchy" akin to a "state of nature," devoid of all lifeworld and culture, with no base-line of interactive practice. On the contrary, for Wendt, the states system is a political culture that constitutes its members and the terms of their individuality, as well as the terms of their perceptions of and interactions with one another. States, according to Wendt, are like people in the sense that they have identities, by which he means "a subjective or unit-level quality, rooted in an actor's self-understandings" (224). The identity of a state can be identified in terms of, first, its reflexive understanding as a "Self" or "I" in relation to "Other," as well as a self-understanding and of having intrinsic properties that give it a likeness to "Others" -- in this case, other states (225-6). Moreover, a state takes on a "role identity" determining its relation to Others, deriving a "Me" through which to understand itself from their perspective: what is expected of it, whether it is viewed as a friend, rival, or enemy, etc. (227). Finally, a state comes to understand itself as part of the collective as a whole, as a member of an international community of other states with which it identifies (229-30). The fact that states have social identities implies an important aspect in which states exist in an integrated society grounded in shared ideas and a "common stock of knowledge"; as such, they gain a good part of their self-understanding by virtue of their location in a society of states. The states system exists in a kind of "anarchy," in the sense that there exists no central locus of authority to coercively and systematically constrain their actions. Yet Wendt insists that "Anarchy as such is an empty vessel and has no intrinsic logic" (249). By virtue of their social identity, Wendt argues that how states interact in the states system is a function of how the anarchy is constituted as a social structure. At the base of this structure or "political culture" is how the states come to view themselves, each other, and the possible relations between them. There is a distinction between the "per se individuality of states" and "the roles or terms of individuality through which states interact" (246, 255-6). These terms of individuality can only come about through shared ideas that have been internalized as norms in the international system, and so form a political culture (249-50). Wendt describes the present international situation as possessing a "Lockean" culture, in which the underlying structure is that of mutual "rivalry." He distinguishes this from a "Hobbesian" culture, which is based on mutual "enmity" or a "war of all against all," and from a "Kantian" culture in which everyone is friendly (see 259-66, 297-302). Rivalry, according to Wendt, takes for granted that states each have certain "basic rights," although how much right and to whom is still often a source of dispute (279-80). The fundamental principle by which each state has rights as members of the states system is its sovereignty, which regulates inter-state rivalry and forms the basis for international law and diplomacy; it permits a semblance of order and minimal trust by making a general norm of "status quo" (280-81). Wendt believes that sovereignty "supervenes on the ideas of individual states" such that "states will make attributions about each other's 'minds' based more on what they know about the structure than what they know about each other, and the system will acquire a logic of its own" (283). Wendt argues that the political culture of the international community not only affects the behavior of states but in fact constitutes them as states. States see themselves and each other as "possessive individuals," and this facilitates their mutual perceptions as those of rivals. The terms of inter-state relations is the jealous protection of sovereignty and "self-interest," and this sets the rather constrained terms of day-to-day diplomacy, which -- cast as the encounter between two polite but rather temperamental rivals -- is often lamented for being limited to the maintenance of a cordial status quo, instead of being directed toward "real progress" through free and provocative deliberation (cf. 295). Robin Wagner-Pacifici (2000) made the claim that "most of social life can be understood as avoidance of standoffs and that there's something of the standoff lurking, contingently behind every social situation" (6). It is partly with this unspoken understanding that we rely on varieties of rules and guidelines in day-to-day interactions. The necessity of such "rules of conduct" becomes all the more apparent in international diplomacy. The situation in which rival heads of state meet is generally defined in a background of tension, and the first priority in diplomatic interaction is the civil and careful prevention of possibilities that might elevate such tensions to the point of cutting off communication altogether. Diplomacy in practice is thoroughly laden with orders of protocol and rules of conduct and procedure, or what Goffman (1967) refers to as rituals of "deference and demeanor." The actual issues over which diplomatic meetings are purportedly set up often fall secondary to the impetus not to offend or provoke passions, to keep the encounter "diplomatic." The result is that day-to-day workings of diplomatic meetings of officers of state tend to be heavily constrained by ritual. This has the consequence that meetings between heads of state are often conducted with rather low expectations for "real" progress. Their function is understood to be mainly symbolic -- it is sufficient for PR to be able to say that the two persons met and had the semblance of a discussion of pressing issues (and that this discussion was "productive," "positive," or "useful"). The meetings would then be conducted with the unspoken understanding that words exchanged were essentially empty -- their routine is generally a show and exchange of gestures of mutual respect, concern, and sympathy for the other's point of view. What is actually said behind closed doors is not so important as the handshake in front of photographers or the fact of a "joint statement" made to the press afterward to show that the two interlocutors do "see eye-to-eye" (incidentally, the Saudis at Crawford rejected a proposal by the Bush administration to make a joint statement). | ||
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We can see now that at least two major factors that influence and constrain what happens in a diplomatic meeting such as the one at Crawford. But this is not to say that "politics," as such, does not take place. There is, to be sure, much political deliberation that takes place around a meeting, both to set the stage for it and to interpret it afterward. As heads of state coming into direct encounter, the terms of the meeting will be informed by the interests of each party, but the interests the two parties are to present to each other bear an important connection to public opinion as is circulated in media. (a) Hannah Arendt (1958; 1977) defines politics as a function of freedom, which is in turn a function of a flourishing public realm. Arendt states that "freedom" is often thought of in opposition to the political, as that which is enjoyed in the private world by one's self (Arendt 1977, 157). It is often associated with the sovereign will or the private rights of the individual, an equation she finds to be mistaken (164). In contrast to this association, then, Arendt wants to postulate freedom as a quality inseparable from the political realm. Like Goffman, she likens social activity to "performance": The performing arts...have a strong affinity with politics. Performing artists...need an audience to show their virtuosity, just as acting men need the presence of others before whom they can appear; both need a publicly organized space for their "work," and both depend upon others for the performance itself. Such a space of appearances is not to be taken for granted wherever men live together in a community. The Greek polis once was precisely that "form of government" which provided men with a space of appearances where they could act, with a kind of theater where freedom could appear. (154)The public realm, for Arendt, is the realm of action -- it is the very engine of society that drives it forward (see 1958). This active space, where individuals interact freely, courageously, and provocatively, is the space of political deliberation, of production and confrontation, and is thus the precise opposite of interaction regulated by "deference and demeanor." What we find then, is another current of movement in interaction in general and in the situational space constituted by media in particular. Earlier, we had considered the media as a space in with public actors "perform" in the sense of conforming to expectations or of projecting a consistent definition of the situation for public consumption -- this is, to be sure, one way through which public figures seek to "stage" upcoming events or to influence "interpretation" of recent ones. In contrast, the media also provides a space for free actors to provoke and subvert constraints, to elicit deliberations that may offer to redefine situations. It is the friction-laden intermingling of these two currents of public performance that produces the stirs and whirls of public opinion-formation, enacted within the framework of media practices and technologies. (b) We can easily comprehend the President's responsiveness to the American public: the United States is home to the world's largest free-press complex, and the acceptance or rejection of the President's policies and activities are heavily dependent on their reception in the media. It is of no surprise then that Bush is concerned about keeping a kind of control over public reception of events at Crawford. The Bush administration is well-known for its preference of "quiet diplomacy" over highly publicized media displays; but even though Bush attempts to justify his preference for the "back region" with references to Bill Clinton's alleged preference for showboating, it should be noted that all presidents make calculated use of both public and closed interactions to maintain desired situational definitions. Diplomacy always involves a delicate balancing of back-stage, ritualized negotiation and front-stage posturing with less predictable public opinion. While the media-dominated public sphere is well-established in the United Sates, it is a much more recent phenomenon in the Arab world. Media in Arab countries had long been regulated by government controls, but newly established private networks, notably Al Jazeera out of Qatar, have facilitated a new responsiveness between government and populace, bringing nascence to a new public sphere in Islamic countries (Golden 2002a; Charney 2002). Tim Golden, for example, believes that the preeminence of satellite television in the region has played a large role in a new awareness and anger over the violence in Israel and its territories, and has "strengthened feelings of solidarity with the Palestinians in countries where such support ha[s at] times been less substantial" (Golden 2002a). It must be noted, of course, that the precise relationship between media-perceived public opinion and the various Arab governments is not as fully formulated as it is in the U.S., nor is it likely to form in the same way as it did in the case of American media. To begin with, most Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia, are not democratically elected and public speech still tends to be very controlled; further, access to media is still much more limited, often for economic reasons (Golden 2002a). It has also been observed that networks such a Al Jazeera follow somewhat different, often more politically inflammatory, journalistic practices than most American media (Charney 2002). These factors indicate that the government-media relationship in the Arab world will not always be entirely analogous to the United States. Nevertheless, the impact of Arab public opinion is both being felt in Arab polities as well as duly noticed in the West. The New York Times reported, one week before the scheduled meeting in Crawford, increased anger over the conduct of Secretary Colin Powell's diplomatic tour of the region (Golden 2002b). This anger was reflected in the governments of both Egypt and Syria, who complained of Powell's displayed leniency toward Israel, and President Hosni Mubarak of the former refused to meet with Powell personally; anticipating the upcoming meeting, however, the Saudi government was reported to be "notably more muted": Saudi analysts said they believed the kingdom was particularly eager to avoid any conflict in advance of Crown Prince Abdullah's planned visit to President Bush's Texas ranch next week. (c) Tim Golden's April 18th article, in addition to reflecting the growing awareness of an "Arab public sphere," also reflects the essential lines of contention between Arab and American foreign policy that will drive the mood leading up to and around the Crawford meeting. It was widely known that the Bush administration wanted to use the meeting to forward the "War against Terror," specifically to press for cooperation in the continuing campaign against Al-Qaeda, to address the curbing of suicide bombings in Israel, and to negotiate the path for a future campaign against Iraq (Agence France-Presse 2002). In contrast, many Arab leaders, including the crown prince, and even American voices (such as Jimmy Carter (2002)) had been calling for a shift in emphasis toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which was reaching a highly volatile point at the time. Drawing in part on Pacifici (2000), we can refer to these respective positions as lines of contingency. Pacifici defines standoffs as "situations of mutual and symmetrical threat, wherein the central parties face each other, literally and figuratively, across some key divide" (7). A standoff is a prolonged moment of frozen but intense confrontation, during which action is for the most part brought to a halt while the involved parties remain acutely aware of their exposure to some extreme violence that can erupt at any moment. As such, Pacifici labels standoffs as a paradigm for contingency, or "those moments when 'fate hangs in the balance...'" (5). Such confrontations can be characterized as a "conflict of meanings": The paradox of a standoff is that while all participants have committed themselves to the situation..., they have, in a profound sense, committed themselves to different situations. They have taken their "stands," that is positioned themselves around some set of issues. And their definitions of the situation are usually diametrically opposed. (7-8)Pacifici believes that, when opposing parties enter into this kind of highly charged interactive gridlock, a unique interpretive moment is produced. She makes a distinction between "normal" and "emergency" time and space which alternatively constitute the structures of social situations: whereas in normal time and space these structures are generally implicit, predictable, and secure, in emergencies they are made explicit and thrown in doubt (19). The acuteness of contingency has the dual and paradoxical possibility of opening space for improvisation while on the brink of breaking down in tragedy. Now the meeting between Bush and the crown prince would not, by Pacifici's definition, fall into the category of "standoff." Yet her observations are nonetheless useful in locating the aspects of contingency that did in fact characterize the meeting. Crawford would definitely fall under what Pacifici calls "Time-Out": "time continues to have possible movement for those within the frame..., but time seems to stop for those outside of the frame who can only wait" (21). In moments of heightened contingency, the pressure of time is increased for the participants while outsiders remain in the dark. We must observe that the meeting was held in the context of a period of exacerbated confrontation in Israel and the West Bank. On the very day of the meeting, two more "classically" defined standoffs had been in progress for over three weeks in Ramallah and Bethlehem. In the latter, an estimated 250 people -- 30 of which were said to be armed and wanted by the Israeli government -- remained confined in the Church of the Nativity, surrounded by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF; Chivers 2002). In Ramallah, Yasser Arafat and several advisers likewise remained cornered in two buildings of his compound by the IDF (Bennet 2002). In addition, the Israeli government was opposing a U.N. inquiry in the wake of an outbreak of military violence in Jenin, which many Palestinians and other Arabs believe ended in a massacre of Palestinian refugees (Colin Powell, siding with the Israeli line, asserted that there was no evidence of such; Schmemann 2002). The meeting at Crawford was not a standoff, but its tone and mood were most certainly set by one. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia were outspoken allies of the Israelis and Palestinians, respectively, who were at the time engaged in a heightened state of mutual violence, with military offensives coming from one side and uprisings and guerrilla attacks from the other. In the middle of this political gridlock were two "genuine" standoffs from which Bush and the crown prince were concentrically removed. The meeting thus represented a kind of "Time-Out" within the "Time-Out" that characterized the events in the West Bank. As informed by these events as it was, the meeting was also underlaid by the fact the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had agendas that were not quite the same as those of the Israelis and the Palestinians, such as the broader plans for American military operations in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia's posturing as a regional leader. One could say that the Israelis and Palestinians were experiencing "emergency" time and space, while their allies were not. Yet these differences in position suggest a certain character of "either/or" that brings a definite element of contingency to the definition of the situation. | ||
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Thus far, we have discussed a number of aspects that factor into the constitution and staging of such a diplomatic encounter as occurred at Crawford on the 25th of April. First of all, international diplomacy is in an important way a "public" event, and its participants are likewise public figures who must maintain a certain "presentation of the self." The primary medium through which a public figure must accomplish this is, as it were, the media, which implies a social environment of its own that prescribes certain techniques and precautions in order to give off and avoid embarrassment of the desired presentation. It is also worthy of note that a diplomatic meeting is, by definition, an encounter between to heads of state coexisting in an international order determined by mutual rivalry; this aspect further complicates matters, as the public figure must continue to present himself to the public as a masterful and effective diplomat while avoiding potentially volatile confrontation with his counterpart. The result is all too often a mitigation of productive dialogue that emphasizes form and symbolism over substantive and provocative deliberation. Finally, the context of the meeting is also influenced by the activities of respective public spheres of the participants, whose answerability to them prevents them from conducting the encounter according to simple raison d'etat. In the case of Crawford, the participants faced public reaction to crucial events regarding close allies in standoff that bore direct relevance to each's own political agendas. Their break over the Israeli-Palestinian situation introduces an element of contingency, and this is reflected in their competing attempts to "stage" their encounter in very different ways. The participants must essentially play three roles simultaneously: (1) the role of media "performer," who projects and maintains a certain presentation of the self, (2) the role of representative of state interest and identity within the culture of mutual rivalry constitutive of the international community, and (3) participant in the public sphere, as a different (though of course related) kind of "performer" engaged with the definitions of situations. President Bush wanted to press his concerns over Saudi Arabia's cooperation with American military operations in the Middle East. For Bush, the "War against Terror" was the presumed order of the day, and it was with this agenda that he intended to approach Crown Prince Abdullah. His administration's "staging" of the meeting is demonstrated in an article that appeared in The New York Times the day prior, April 24th. The article was titled, "Bush to Discuss Mideast and Iraq With Saudi Prince," and is worth quoting at length: US President George W. Bush was to welcome Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to his Texas ranch Thursday with the blunt message that Arab leaders must do more to help end violence in the Middle East.From the perspective of the Bush administration, the Israel-Palestinian situation was to be on the agenda as consideration of the crown prince's "land-for-peace proposal," and the article states that he was also to discuss Saudi Arabia's possible future membership in the World Trade Organization (Agence France-Presse 2002). Cheney was already to meet with the crown prince the day before "to set the stage for the talks"; according to Reuters, Cheney's spokeswoman "called the meetings an opportunity to discuss trade, investment and regional security matters" (Agence France-Presse 2002; Reuters 2002a). Thomas L. Friedman published the only major opinion piece that same day on the topic, but it reaffirmed the same basic message: "It is for America to get Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat to face up to what each wants to ignore." Friedman believed it was Bush's job to make clear that "as Americans we still have some 'yesterday' business to clear up with him," and pointed to the fact that 15 of the September 11th hijackers were Saudi citizens: "Saudi Arabia refuses to take any responsibility for its citizens who participated in Sept. 11. A society that won't acknowledge responsibility isn't likely to engage in self-correction -- in terms of how it educates its youth and what opportunities it offers them in the future" (Friedman 2002). In Bush's projection, the main issues of concern between the two countries were September 11th, terrorism, security, trade, and the broad vision of the Saudi peace plan. It was known and reported that the Saudi prince wanted to "urge" Bush to "be more even-handed in the Middle East conflict, but, at least in most of the articles that appeared in the Times, this was not portrayed as a major part of the agenda (Reuters 2002a). The meeting, as conveyed by the press, was to focus on concerns of the American polity and of those being pressed by the Bush administration. To be sure, even the titles of the headlines -- "Bush to Discuss...," "Cheney Meeting...," etc. -- are structured with the American as the subject or driving agent in staging the encounter. Thus, from the perspective of the American public sphere, Crawford is to be about redress for September 11th; from that of international relations, it is to be about the "War against Terror," action on Iraq, and trade; and the central protagonist in the encounter is to be the president. Moreover, the diplomatic procession was intended to be straightforward: a series of quiet, behind closed-doors discussions following civil and amiable decorums. It is unlikely that Bush would have rigorously drilled Abdullah regarding Saudi involvement in the September 11th hijackings; but a successful conclusion of the meeting on his own terms would have allowed him emerge as one "in control" of the situation for the benefit of the American public and the international community. But things changed literally overnight when the Times published an article the morning of the 25th titled, "Saudi to Warn Bush of Rupture Over Israeli Policy": Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is expected to tell President Bush in stark terms at their meeting today that the strategic relationship between their two countries will be threatened if Mr. Bush does not moderate his support for Israel's military policies, a person familiar with the Saudi's thinking said on Wednesday.The reaction in the United States was immediate. By noon, the oil market was visibly shaken (Reuters 2002c). There was uncertainty due to the fact that the report was from an anonymous source, a mysterious "person close to the crown," whose assessment "was apparently being conveyed through several private channels" (Tyler 2002a). Within a few hours, reports were coming in that the Saudis officially denied any such intention, but the damage, as it were, was already done (Reuters 2002e). The possibility had been interjected into the American public sphere, and Prince Abdullah emerged within it with new prominence as a political actor. The new subject or protagonist of the situation was now Crown Prince Abdullah. Subsequent Times articles read "Saudi Not Mulling Oil as 'Weapon,'" "Saudi Tells Bush U.S. Must Temper Backing of Israel," "Saudi Proposes Mideast Action Led by the U.S.," and so on. MSNBC and other cable news stations gave an inordinate amount of attention to the "controversy" over the Crawford meeting, the "Oil Weapon," and the motives of the crown prince. MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams featured a three-way debate between Thomas W. Lippman, Israeli Embassy Spokesman Mark Regev, and Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on the day of the Crawford meeting, with the rather stark title "FRIEND OR FOE?" displayed across the bottom of the screen. Crawford was no longer about Bush's meeting with the crown prince; it was the crown prince's meeting with Bush. The Saudis had effectively projected a definition of the situation counter to that of the Bush administration. Bush walked into the meeting while oil markets were still roiled by rumors of a supply threat and media spheres were gossiping about a dramatic "make-or-break" confrontation. The crown prince in essence "redrew" the lines of contingency between himself and Bush by interjecting a new one that the Americans were unprepared for. Moreover, he derailed the possibility of a quiet, controlled meeting with a predetermined agenda; Bush was removed to a reactive position. The locus of discussion had in a certain way been transferred from the back stage realm of "quiet diplomacy" to the narrative lexias of the media sphere. While not going so far as to throw the entire diplomatic mission into chaos, Prince Abdullah managed to interject a sufficient element of contingency to elicit a moment of real deliberation, at least in the public realm. In the meeting itself, it seemed to have been the crown prince's agenda that dominated, and this is reflected in the Bush administration's statements to interpret the meeting afterward. Crown Prince Abdullah presented Bush with "an eight-point proposal" for an "American-led peace initiative in the Middle East," and stressed the need for the U.S. to moderate its support for Sharon at the risk of bringing added instability to the region (Tyler 2002b). There was not much mention in the Times of discussion of matters relating to the "War against Terror," September 11th, Iraq, or the World Trade Organization (although these issues were in fact raised); most subsequent articles on the meeting emphasized the Israel-Palestinian conflict and U.S.-Arab relations. Yet the Bush administration continued to project the image that the meeting went more-or-less to their liking. Bush himself was quoted: "One of the really positive things out of this meeting was that the crown prince and I established a strong personal bond"; he spoke about their spending of time one-on-one, their tour of the ranch, driving together in a pickup truck, and spotting a wild turkey (Bumiller 2002). There is a sense in which the crown prince's actions around the Crawford meeting could be dismissed as a mere "power play," and, to an extent, it was. But the point to keep in mind is that Prince Abdullah could not have made a simple newspaper article into a power play unless there preexisted certain understandings, certain matrices, certain features of the rules of social interaction that made it significant. The must be certain meanings and practices linking what appears in a certain form in the press to what happens behind closed doors in a diplomatic meeting for it to bear relevance to defining a situation. The preceding discussion has been an attempt to look at what these rules, meanings, and practices are, and how they work. Obviously, none of us were able to actually observe the Crawford meeting while it was in progress, as well as numerous other activities that took place "behind-the-scenes" in the Bush administration, in Riyadh, or in the media, and so our study is necessarily limited and incomplete. Even without these back-stage perspectives, we can still come to appreciate the complexity of dynamics between the media, the political, and the public that figure into the social reality of day-to-day international relations, and all its contingencies. | ||
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