Editor's Note: Research Associate Reza Aslan, a scholar of religions and the author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Random House), recently published in paperback, submits this examination of a public diplomacy challenge for the United States and its image in Iran and surrounding Muslim countries. Aslan offers that current U.S. policy considerations may provide an untenable challenge for public diplomacy practitioners.

Monday, May 8, 2006
3:00PM with a reception to follow
Venue: Davidson Center, USC Campus, 3415 S. Figueroa, LA

Join the USC Center on Public Diplomacy as we announce the award winners of the Reinventing Public Diplomacy through Games Contest.

According to the Reuters news agency, "Cuba today started 24-hour jamming in Havana of Radio Marti, the United States' Spanish-language station transmitted from Miami, and said it would extend the jamming to the whole island."

That was back in May 1990.

"The success of any moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers," said American social reformer William Lloyd Garrison some 150 years ago. But times have changed.

CAIRO - Those new monitors they're installing in Washington briefing rooms will remain dark for a little while longer: Al-Jazeera International (AJI), the English-language cousin to the Bush administration's Qatar-based nemesis, has once more delayed its launch plans.

There is good news and bad news in the world of public diplomacy.

The good news is that respected observers and senior American officials are now paying more attention and trying to develop public diplomacy strategies. The not-so-good news is that they are getting it wrong. And the really bad news is that until America fixes its diplomacy both public and traditional, our national interests will continue to be badly compromised by precisely those institutions most responsible for protecting us.

Join the USC Center on Public Diplomacy as we cordially announce the awards-recipients of the Reinventing Public Diplomacy through Games Contest!

When: May 8th, 2006 3:00-5:00 p.m. PST

Where: Davidson Executive Conference Center

University of Southern California

3415 S. Figueroa Street

Los Angeles, CA 90089-0871



There will also be simulcast of the Awards Ceremony within Second Life! Stay tuned for more details!