A diplomacia americana tem que se antecipar aos fatos... e não sair tropegando atrás

Amplify’d from www.foreignpolicy.com

Whispering at Autocrats

In one fell swoop, the candor of the cables released by WikiLeaks did more for Arab democracy than decades of backstage U.S. diplomacy.

America's relationship with China did not crumble when Hillary Clinton challenged its government to stop censoring the Internet last year, or when she challenged the country to account for the dissidents it has disappeared over the years just days before last week's summit between presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao. America's Arab friends did not walk away from their alliances with the United States after Clinton told them, at a recent public forum in Qatar, that "people have grown tired of [their] corrupt institutions and stagnant political order." Such public candor not only encourages dissidents in repressive societies, but stimulates debate among elites, who often privately admit that the Americans have a point. It can contribute to those magical moments -- unpredictable, infrequent, but in the longer scheme of things inevitable -- when stagnant order gives way to vibrant change.

The people of Tunisia shouldn't have had to wait for WikiLeaks to learn that the U.S. saw their country just as they did. It's time that the gulf between what American diplomats know and what they say got smaller. Read more at www.foreignpolicy.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br5fp