Instapundit recently alerted us to a piece in the New York Sun about an alarming disruption in America’s pro-democracy efforts for Iran:

The former director of President Bush’s flagship democracy program for the Middle East is saying that the State Department has “effectively killed” a program to disburse millions of dollars to Iran’s liberal opposition.
In an interview yesterday, Scott Carpenter said a recent decision to move the $75 million annual aid program for Iranian democrats to the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs would effectively neuter an initiative the president had intended to spur democracy inside the Islamic Republic.

Near the bottom of the article, we read this:

The money for Iranian democrats increased significantly in 2006 to $75 million after Iran announced that it had begun to enrich uranium at its Natanz facility. But most of that money, $49 million, was designated for Voice of America’s Persian service and Radio Farda, an American funded Persian radio station that mixes news and popular music.

“If the program is just going to be expanding Voice of America and Radio Farda,” Mr. Carpenter said, “don’t brand it as the Iran democracy program.”

Actually, it does. The fact is, America’s international broadcasting efforts, for which I used to work, is a democracy program. It can be stand-alone, or it can work with other campaigns. Carpenter unecessarily separates international broadcasting from other pro-democracy efforts. All efforts work hand-in-hand. These aren’t isolated initiatives.

That point is made a bit differently but far more eloquently and subtly in today’s Washington Post in a piece by Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Satloff writes an intelligent and compelling critique of Karen Hughes’ tenure as the Bush Administration’s public diplomacy director.

Satloff suggests that with Hughes now out of the way, we can “focus on identifying, nurturing and supporting anti-Islamist Muslims, from secular liberals to pious believers, who fear the encroachment of radical Islamists and are willing to make a stand.” One element of his strategy? International broadcasting:

marshaling government resources — our embassies, aid bureaucracies, international broadcasting units and intelligence agencies, as well as our commercial, educational and civic relationships — to give anti-Islamists the moral, political, financial, technological and material support they need.

That’s the correct approach for supporting freedom around the world. A broad strategy, of which international broadcasting is one solid element.