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Our Diplomats' Arabic Handicap
Foreign languages are not my strong suit, one of the few things I would change in the blink of an eye, if the Powers That Be asked me if I thought they'd forgotten to give me anything important for this trip around the solar system. But if I had any talent at language at all, I'd be in Spanish first (the classes always filled first, and I was pressured to take French, the "collegiate language") followed by Chinese, Arabic and Japanese.
Unfortunately, we provide NO incentives to our Foreign Service people to try and become level 4, or near-fluent, in any language. We don't even teach level 4.
Here's a suggestion or two from a person who has observed this on both sides of the aisle, civilian and FS:
"At a time when the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 performance reviews and interviews with human resource and language training staff make clear. 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."
Unfortunately, we provide NO incentives to our Foreign Service people to try and become level 4, or near-fluent, in any language. We don't even teach level 4.
Here's a suggestion or two from a person who has observed this on both sides of the aisle, civilian and FS:
"At a time when the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 performance reviews and interviews with human resource and language training staff make clear. 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."