The United States doesn't always do the best job of promoting itself abroad. Lots of people in lots of different places like to burn American flags and chant anti-U.S. slogans. It's stock footage at this point.

But yesterday the New York Times highlighted an encouraging U.S. cultural diplomacy effort in a pretty unexpected area: French banlieues. 

Obviously the U.S. image is a bit worse in other parts of the world, so why do outreach in France instead of FATA? For one, terrorist plots are increasingly being launched by disaffected Muslim youth in western countries who have been shunned by their new societies. Demonstrating that they can actually have a future in the west is thus both good on a social and security level. And if there were any western country in which to combat the ill-effects of racism and bigotry, it's France, which has totally abrogated any responsibility of caring for its growing immigrant population.

President Barack Obama's election certainly played a role in silencing the once ubiquitous anti-American voices in the banlieues (hey, look! It still means something!), but just as important has been the substantial engagement attempts on the part of the U.S. Mission to France:

The United States Embassy in Paris has formed a network of partnerships with local governments, advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, students and cultural leaders in the troubled immigrant enclaves outside France’s major cities...

Residents “have the sense that the United States looks upon our areas with much more deference and respect,” said Mr. Roger, the Bondy mayor.

The embassy also runs an International Visitor Leadership Program that brings 20-30 up-and-coming French entrepreneurs and politicians to the United States each year, and at least one participant raved about the program:

A Moroccan-born Muslim, Mr. Senni traveled to the United States in 2006 as a participant in the visitor program. He was effusive in his praise for the outreach and the optimism it has spread. “Never has France had this type of approach,” he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has a history of dealing with Parisian suburbs, and it's not particularly flattering. During the 2005 banlieues riots, then-Interior Minister Sarkozy infamously called the rioters "scum" and that they should be "hosed down." Surprisingly, his comments only made the rioters angrier.

Nowadays when Sarkozy ventures out to the suburbs he's accompanied by a major police presence and spends his time focusing on law enforcement issues, and not on the myriad social and economic complaints of the locals. He said in 2007 that the riots were the result of "thugocracy," which sounds like a brilliant future title of a 50 Cent album, and not social issues.

The embassy also brought Samuel L. Jackson to the banlieues to connect with local youths, and I believe he told them that, "I've had it with this mother-******* unemployment in these mother-******* banlieues." Seriously.

The U.S. is freaking out over qurans, shariah law, and Manhattan community centers, but at least some of our diplomats get the importance of engaging on a human level. The U.S. Ambassador to France, Charles H. Rivkin, sums it up: "It’s easier to hate something you don’t understand."

Iraq is still paying the world back for Saddam's actions -- literally. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Iraqi government has agreed to pay $400 million to American citizens who claimed to have been tortured or traumatized by the Iraqi regime following Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. With a 15-30 percent unemployment rate, ubiquitous violence, and a still lacking infrastructure, why is the new Iraqi regime paying so much money to American citizens when it was all Saddam's fault? Because the payment may help Iraq's case to end U.N. sanctions that have lasted since Saddam Hussein's rule: 

Settling the claims, which were brought by American citizens, has been seen as a key requirement for Washington to be willing to push for an end to the UN sanctions.

"There was a lot of pressure on the Iraqi government to do something that gets Congress off their back," says one senior Iraqi official, adding that the settlement cleared the way for US efforts to bring Iraq out from under the UN sanctions.

That's right, Saddam is long gone but sanctions on the still rebuilding country aren't. In fact, Iraq has already paid Kuwait $27.6 billion in reparations and continues to devote five percent of its oil revenues in accordance with the U.N. sanctions resulting from Saddam's invasion. While many countries have cancelled a lot or all of Iraq's debt to them, Kuwait continues to support Iraqi reparations -- regardless of the $22 billion Kuwaiti budget surplus for the last fiscal year.

So if U.S. citizens get paid by the Iraqi government for Saddam's "traumatizing" from 20 years ago, what will the United States pay the families of Iraqi citizens that are actually killed by U.S. forces? Well, the U.S. government is trying to find ways for Iraq to pay for that too.

Yesterday I touched on Fidel Castro's apology for anti-gay measures that occurred under his rule -- including detaining gays in forced labor camps -- calling it a "great injustice." But this is not Castro's only clarification of late. The former Cuban leader seems hellbent on crafting his legacy in a more positive light. Why the re-emergence, and why the rehabiliation campaign, now?

As revealed in La Jornado Monday, Castro was "at death's door" in 2006. At the time,  speculation was rife that he had already died. Thus, it makes sense that Castro is pushing himself in the limelight -- faced with death, the old revolutionary wants to clean up his name while he has a chance. There's certainly also a chance that he has mellowed in his later years. As he's no longer facing the threat of assassination, his stress levels have also probably declined some.

Perhaps most interesting are the pictures of Jeffrey Goldberg -- yes, that Jeffrey Goldberg -- accompanying the old revolutionary on various stops throughout Cuba. How Goldberg -- rather than, you know, a journalist with a background in Cuban affairs -- came to be side-by-side with Castro is a total mystery. But I'm sure we can look for Goldberg to illuminate his trip in the near future -- though I imagine it'd garner a lot less interest than some of his other recent writings. (Council on Foreign Relations expert Julia E. Sweig was also on the trip.)

In addition to his comments on gay rights, Castro said during a press conference with Goldberg that he is by no means an anti-Semite:

I was never anti-Jewish and I share with him a deep hatred against Nazi-Fascism and the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people by Hitler and his followers.

President Barack Obama has made tentative steps to end the hostility between Cuba and the United States, and Castro's words may be a recognition of that. While his brother is now president, it's obvious that Fidel's words carry great weight in the island nation. Maybe it's time for Obama to launch a more audacious foreign policy venture, one that may even bear some results: a direct meeting with Castro. Perhaps the old U.S. nemesis could aim to improve relations in his last years. More importantly, it'd prove that engagement is -- as it should be -- still a part of the Obama administration's strategy, and it would send another signal to the rest of the world that, if you are reasonable, the United States will deal with you.

The Knesset voted today to revoke the parliamentary privileges of MK Hanin Zoabi, an Arab deputy who participated in the ill-fated flotilla that attempted to break the Israeli siege of Gaza last May. The scene in the Knesset appears to have devolved into something of a circus: A deputy from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party handed MK Zoabi a mock Iranian passport, accusing her of joining the ranks of Israel's enemies.

As luck would have it, I had dinner last night with Israel's Minister of Minorities Avishay Braverman, a member of the Labor Party. Did rescinding MK Zoabi's privileges represent a breach of Israel's much-touted equality between its Jewish citizens and its Arab minority, which represent one-fifth of Israel's population? While he condemned her actions, Braverman also said, "I do not support this sort of populist action" against Zoabi.

This is just the latest dispute between Braverman and Lieberman, who have come to represent opposite poles in the debate over Israel's policy toward its Arab minority. And Braverman left little doubt about his opinion toward his coalition partner: When asked about the possibility of population swaps between Israel and a nascent Palestinian state in the event of a peace agreement, an idea for which Lieberman voiced support, Braverman said, "It will never happen. Never never...What Foreign Minister Lieberman is doing is making statements to win a few seats."

And then there is Lierberman's call for instituting a loyalty oath that Arab Israelis would have to sign to sign or losing their citizenship, which some have credited with Lieberman's strong showing in Israel's most recent election. This idea, Braverman said, was shot down by the Labor Party ministers and even right-wing ministers, such as Benny Begin. But before it was rejected, Braverman said, "Lieberman got his headlines."

The defeat of these initiatives is certainly encouraging. Less encouraging, however, is the apparently enduring belief, held by a number of successful right-wing politicians, that flogging Israel's Arab minority is a useful way to win votes. Effective political grandstanding on this issue, after all, could easily transform itself into changes in government policy that could erode Israel's commitment to equality, and take Western support along with it.

The U.S. State Department summoned Syria's top diplomat in Washington, Zouheir Jabbour, to rebuke his government for transferring arms to Hezbollah. This was apparently the fourth time in recent weeks that the United States had raised these concerns with the Syrians -- but one of the first times that it had been done publicly. The State Department statement "condemns in the strongest terms the transfer of any arms, and especially ballistic missile systems such as the SCUD, from Syria to Hezbollah."

A few quick points on this news. When this story broke last week, skeptics -- including the United States's erstwhile ally, the prime minister of Lebanon -- were quick to dismiss it as Israeli propaganda. The public criticism of a Syrian diplomat should put an end to the talk that this is solely an Israeli disinformation campaign. The U.S. intelligence community obviously believes there is something behind this story, though the details remain blurry. The question now is whether this transfer actually took place, whether Syria transferred parts of the SCUDs to Hezbollah, or whether they merely had the intention to transfer the weapons.

Secondly, when the State Department wanted to call a Syrian official to task, they had to settle for Zouheir Jabbour, the deputy chief of mission. Where is Syrian Ambassadar Imad Moustapha? On vacation, apparently -- where he has been since this crisis broke last week.  As we're in a particularly fraught point in the U.S-Syrian engagement process, this is a strange point for Syria's top envoy in Washington to be taking a breather.

The secretary of state's Latin America trip continues:

While in Montevideo, Mrs. Clinton met with President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, congratulating him for accepting a Constitutional Court ruling that denied him the opportunity to run for a third term. 

Yes, it's definitely a good thing that Uribe isn't ignoring the court ruling and attempting to illegally extend his term, but does it really merit a congratulations?

There's no two ways about it: The last year of foreign policy had more drama than a Scorsese epic and enough thrills to put Avatar to shame. From the fearsome battle in the Afghan hills to the U.S.-China love-hate relationship, and from the serious al Qaeda threats in Yemen to the hard-to-take-seriously pirates off the Somali coast, 2009 was arguably a much more interesting year for global politics than for movies. So with Oscar nominations due tomorrow, we're taking nominations for our own FP Oscars.

Who would you pick for the best actor of the year? Is President Barack Obama holding his own in an unfriendly world, or does the ubiquitous Brazilian President Lula deserve an Oscar? Is Muammar Qaddafi's persona just too good to be true, or do you prefer the smooth, suave diplomacy (and wacky domestic antics) of France's Nicolas Sarzoky?

You tell us what scandals, dramas, tragicomedies, and personal stories are your picks for the history books in 2009. Listed below are the categories and a few sample entries. Send your own nominations to Joshua.Keating@foreignpolicy.com or paste them in the comments below. May the best news win!

Best picture: What one story encapsulates the year?

Best drama: Spies, dissidents, treachery, and truth. Were the adrenaline-pumping protests following the Iran elections the most dramatic event? Or perhaps it was the long, drawn-out U.S. decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. If you have a humanitarian bent, the crises in Haiti, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan might come a heart-wrenching first.

Best comedy: If it isn't a tragedy, the dysfunction of the U.S. Congress is certainly good for a laugh. Then again, how about the Copenhagen Climate conference that ended in a collective shrug? Or the British MPs who used their expense accounts to buy fancy rugs and re-dig their backyard swimming pools?

Best romantic comedy: Gordon Brown requested meeting after meeting with the U.S. president; Obama just didn't have time. Brown gave him a romantic antique biography of Churchill, and Obama gave him a DVD box set. Let's just say the special relationship isn't all it used to be. But then again, there are other comedies in Europe these days ... Berlusconi anyone?

Best romantic drama: Unclear whether this should be a drama or a comedy, but the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladamir Putin certainly have a relationship worth noting -- as their press photographer has shown time and time again...

Best action: A U.S. ship is seized in the Gulf of Aden and devious pirates take the Maersk Alabama captive on the high seas, demanding a ransom for their deed. But lo and behold! A brave captain sacrifices his freedom to save his crew. And the U.S. whacks three pirates in the end, bringing everyone home safely! Phew!

Best special effects: Hmm, how about that missile launch in North Korea? It hit right on target: the Pacific Ocean.

Best director: Nicolas Sarkozy is a whirling dervish of diplomatic activity.

Best actor: Very few world leaders can also claim their own daily television shows -- and surprisingly humorous ones at that. "Alo Presidente" hasn't exactly skyrocketed Hugo Chavez to fame (his coup attempt back in the 1990s did that), but man has this guy mastered media in the Drudge Era.

Best actress: On a more serious note, few women leaders have been more powerful this year in asserting political freedom than Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi. Or does Hillary Clinton have your vote? As one FP staffer put it, "she's the queen of 'the show must go on.'"

Best supporting actress: Is Carla Bruni the perfect companion for a perfectionist French president?

Best supporting actor: Let's be honest: One man whose entire year has been a story about other people's interests is the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. For all his posturing and pontificating, he was never running the show.

Best costume: Libya's Muammar Qaddafi designs his own clothes.

Worst costume: Libya's Muammar Qaddafi designs his own clothes. You decide.

Lifetime achievement award: Fidel? Kim Jong Il? Mubarak? Most of the longest-lasting players on the world stage aren't particularly savory characters. Got someone better?

We'll post a full list of nominees based on your e-mails and comments on Monday, Feb. 8 and give you a chance to vote. The final winners will be announced at the end of the month. 

We promise to keep the musical numbers short.

My colleagues here have been weighing in on Google's "bombshell" revelation that China has been spying on dissidents and human rights activists, trying to crack open their Gmail accounts, presumably with the aim of monitoring and disrupting their activities. A lot of commentary is so far focused on the immediate issue at hand -- China's crushing censorship and Google's controversial policy of accomodating it in the hopes of gaining market share (see Jordan Calinoff's excellent dispatch on how this policy has largely failed). Of course, we already knew China did this sort of thing, but having the details so dramatically thrust into the public sphere is shocking. This is going to be a huge, ongoing story, not only because Google and China are two of the biggest and most widely debated news topics in the world, but also because nearly everyone's going to sympathize with the people whose privacy and peace of mind has been violated.

There's a larger story developing though, of a very tense year in relations between China and the West. Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer made that prediction earlier this year, and it's probably happening even faster than he imagined. In addition to this Google story, which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already jumped on, there's also a brewing U.S.-China fight over arms sales to Taiwan, China's recent missile test in retaliation, and a guerrilla trade war that now seems more likely to develop into a full-blown trade conflict.

By overplaying its hand with the activists, and messing with a huge global company with a massive ability to get its message out, China has foolishly just thrown away whatever goodwill it has built up over the years through its "charm offensive" -- at least in the West. Now, those arguing across a range of issues that China is a bad actor have been handed an enormous rhetorical club to beat Beijing over the head with. It's going to get ugly.

From Unredacted, the very cool blog of the National Security Archive, here is a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, asking for citizenship from the Soviet Union. He lived in the Soviet Union, mostly in Minsk, from 1959 to 1962; the Soviets rejected his request for citizenship. A PDF of the letter is here -- a bit grainy, but readable. Here's what it says:

I Lee Harvey Oswald, request that I be granted citizenship in the Soviet Union, my visa began on Oct. 15, and will expire on Oct. 21, I must be granted asylum before this date. [Unreadable] I wait for the citizenship decision.

At present I am a citizen of the United States of America.

I want citizenship because; I am a communist and a worker, I have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers  are slaves.

I am twenty years old, I have completed three years  in the United States Marine Corps, I served with the occupation forces in Japan, I have seen American military imperialism in all its forms,

I do not want to return to any country outside of the Soviet Union. 

I am writing to give up my American citizenship and assume the responsibilities of a Soviet citizen.

I had saved my money which I earned as a private in the American military for two years, in order to come to Russia for the express purpose of seeking citizenship here. I do not have enough money left to live indefintly [sic] here, or to return to any other country. I have no desire to return to any other country. I ask that my request be given quick consideration. 

Sincerly[sic],

Lee H. Oswald

Today, Sen. Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Conn., announced that will not seek re-election this year. Dodd, suffering from a low approval rating and bashed for his perceived closeness with fat-cat bankers, wasn't expected to win a sixth term.

Dodd was primarily known as a domestic policy guy, and a powerful one at that -- a longtime Hill veteran, the head of the Senate Banking Committee, and at the center of the financial regulations storm.

But Dodd was also an important foreign policy thinker -- especially regarding Latin America. In the 1970s, just out of college, Dodd served with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Once on the Hill, he maintained an interest in the region, becoming one of the loudest progressive voices regarding policy for the countries he always insisted were not "America's backyard" but "America's neighborhood." Back in the 1980s, he -- along with Sens. John Kerry and Tom Harkin -- spoke out against the Reagan administration's military and financial support of anticommunist groups, like the contras in Nicaragua. He later advocated for taking a soft-glove approach with countries like Cuba and Venezuela. (This won him plenty of opprobrium from the right, particularly during the Bush administrations.) More recently, he has won plaudits for his vocal support of policies to aid the human-rights disaster in Darfur. 

As for Dodd's seat's future -- the Connecticut Democratic and Republican primaries are upcoming. Richard Blumenthal, the state's very popular attorney general, is expected to gain the Dem nod and Dodd's seat in the Senate. He'll likely face Republican Linda McMahon, the head of the WWE wrestling federation. No word yet on her views on Chavez.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

In recent days, a number of press stories have strongly conveyed U.S. officials' demand that Pakistan go after not just the Mehsud tribal grouping, a.k.a. the Pakistani Taliban, but also Siraj Haqqani's network next door in North Waziristan. The messages have been delivered in public and in private from the highest levels -- President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Jim Jones, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, Adm. Mike Mullen, and presumably others. (Jane Perlez of the New York Times reports on Pakistan's exasperation with all this pressure here.)

Yes, Haqqani is bad news and his people are killing U.S. troops and probably harboring al Qaeda. But I'm a little puzzled by the impatience the Obama administration is showing. For one thing, Pakistan is still mopping up in South Waziristan, and bombs are still going off in Pakistani cities. And let's also keep in mind that the Pakistani Army had to cut a deal with Haqqani just to safely get to South Waziristan. So it's a little premature for Pakistan to start multiplying its enemies.

Then there's the point that Peter Feaver raises here, which is that Pakistan is hedging its bets because it isn't sure the United States is going to stick around in South Asia and is paranoid about India's rising influence in Afghanistan. Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason, writing for FP, relayed the following anecdote, sourced to "a highly placed Pakistani official":

Pakistan's reaction to Obama's speech was to order its top military intelligence service, the ISI, to immediately begin rebuilding and strengthening covert ties to the Afghan Taliban in anticipation of their eventual return to power[.] 

My point here is that no amount of hectoring from U.S. officials is going to change Pakistan's strategy -- there has to be a change in how Islamabad sees its interests. A couple stars have to align: India has to somehow allay Pakistani fears, the United States has to convince Pakistan that it's staying in Aghanistan for the long haul, and Pakistan needs to feel confident that it has the situation in the tribal areas well in hand. It would be foolish for Pakistan to rush into a new conflict in North Waziristan based on America's word alone.

Josh R. has a great Cable post today on a new CFR/PEW poll that reveals a massive yawning gap between the opinions of the general public and the foreign policy elite on Obama's handling of national security and foreign policy.

The other interesting bit of data from the poll shows a huge jump isolationist sentiment in the U.S. public. As the authors write, "For the first time in more than 40 years of polling, a plurality (49%) says the United States should "mind its own business internationally" and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.": 

It appears the Obama adminstiration will retain the United States's longstanding refusal to sign the 10-year-old Mine Ban Treaty:

"This administration undertook a policy review and we decided our landmine policy remains in effect," [Sate Department Spokesman Ian] Kelly said in response to a question. "We made our policy review and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this convention."

The U.S. participated in the drafting of the treaty but has refused to sign, largely because of the use of mines on the Korean peninsula. The announcement comes before a review of the treaty's progress in Colombia next week. 

The decision has disappointed mine ban advocates like Senator Patrick Leahy, who called it a "lost opportunity for the United States to show leadership instead of joining with China and Russia and impeding progress."

But the adminsitration's decision is probably a moot point anyway since it's unlikely the White House could get the 67 Senate votes required to ratify the treaty anyway, particularly with tough congressional fights looming on the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, Law of the Sea and others.   

A guest post from Foreign Policy contributor and human-rights activist Rebecca Hamilton.

Last week, the State Department partnered with two U.S.-based advocacy organizations (Save Darfur and STAND) to launch AskUS -- a web 2.0 initiative to connect the Obama administration with citizen activists.

More than 500 citizens emailed and used the Twitter hashtag #AskUS to submit questions on Sudan policy that they wanted Save Darfur to ask; students around the country voted online for the questions they wanted answered. The exercise culminated yesterday with a meeting, web-streamed live and cross-posted on the State Department's Facebook page. Leaders from Save Darfur and STAND asked a selection of the citizens' questions to U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration and Director of Multilateral Affairs at the National Security Council Samantha Power.

The event was not quite as "live" as its billing implied. Advocates had to give the administration their questions in advance. One former State Department official I interviewed referred to Darfur activists as "noise we had to manage" -- and I feared that AskUS would be nothing more than a web 2.0 opportunity for the administration to "manage" a vocal and often critical advocacy movement.

As it turned out, the shoe was on the other foot. Activists were given the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, and they pursued that avenue with such vigor that any fear of them being co-opted by their well-publicized access to the White House ceased to be a concern. What was a concern was the administration's inability to provide concrete answers to the advocates' questions.

During the session, Gration explained that there are some aspects of policy that cannot be shared publicly, and presumably no one would disagree that the need to keep some material confidential is inherent in any nation's diplomatic activities. But Gration's backtracking caused confusion among advocates who had eagerly tuned in: Despite the AskUS initiative being promoted as a forum for open dialogue, the administration was cagey on some fairly rudimentary points about its new Sudan policy.

Indeed, the Obama administration's Sudan strategy, rolled out on October 19, focuses on calibrating pressures and incentives on the basis of "verifiable changes in conditions on the ground." Yet during yesterday's meeting, advocates were told that the benchmarks for measuring progress were "a process we're working through."

The best summation of the State Department's first foray into citizen engagement 2.0 is, appropriately enough, encapsulated in a tweet by TechPresident blogger Micah Sifry. Responding to the frustration advocates were expressing in real-time to the vagueness of the administration's answers, he wrote, "Whatever you may think about substance of Gration/Power's answers, State Dept just raised the bar on admin transparency efforts." Indeed. 

It's not by chance that AskUS was launched around an issue that has such a strong U.S.-based constituency. Let's hope the next meeting sees activists on Congo, Burma, Sri Lanka, or any of the other many neglected crises, get an invite to the White House.

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