By Al Kamen
Monday, July 31, 2006; A13

The Marine Corps intelligence folks have been handing out a "Culture Smart Card" for everyone serving in Iraq to use as a guide to make friends and influence people.

The primer explains basic courtesies, such as: "Shake hands gently in greeting and departure, but always with your right hand. Respond to a woman's greeting only when she initiates the contact." Also, "don't point with a finger; it is a sign of contempt; instead, point with your entire hand."

The latest card, which came out in May -- they're issued every couple of years, we're told -- is so good that the section on "cultural groups" pretty much predicts the bloodshed of the past two months:

"Sunnis blame Shia for undermining the mythical unity of Islam and they view them as less loyal to Iraq. Shia blame Sunnis for marginalizing the Shia majority and resent Sunni attempts to question their loyalty to Iraq."

"Kurds are openly hostile toward Iraqi Arabs," the card says; they speak Kurdish, not Arabic, and they are "distrustful of the Turkoman, as they have competing claims over Kirkuk. The Assyrians experienced persecution by both Kurds and Arabs," while the Chaldeans "distrust both Kurdish and Arab intentions." Talk about a dysfunctional family.

But not to worry. The card gives key phrases you'll need to deal with this situation:

"Stop/awgaf; do not move/le tet-Harak; lower your hands/nezill eidayk; turn around/in-dar; drop your weapons/Dhib is-la-Hak" and finally "lie on your stomach/in-baT-aH."

Don't go on patrol without it.

Let's face it. These are not easy times for America's effort to make friends in the Middle East. The key media outlets in this campaign -- al-Hurra television and Radio Sawa -- are laboring hard.

But a recent survey of college students in the region -- done before Israel's re-invasion of Lebanon -- says U.S. policies on Israel and in Iraq are such that "these networks may be completely unable to change opinions on these two issues."

The survey, an unscientific sampling of attitudes of 394 university communications students in such places as Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco, found that these young people listened to Radio Sawa's pop music, but there was "no significant relationship between the frequency of listening to Radio Sawa and favorability toward US foreign policy." The same held true for al-Hurra.

Worse yet, the more they listened, the less they liked us, according to the new study, "U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World," published in the current Global Media and Communication. "One significant finding," said author Mohammed el-Nawawy of Queens University of Charlotte, "is that respondents' attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy have worsened slightly since their exposure to Radio Sawa and Television Alhurra."

Bad study, Broadcasting Board of Governors spokesman Larry Hart responded: "The self-selected sample is too small, nearly half [were] Palestinian and some of them . . . never saw or heard our broadcasts."

Al-Hurra, with a budget of $73 million this year, and Sawa, budget $23 million, are asking for an additional $10 million for fiscal 2007. Can't hurt that much more.

President Bush ordered more troops to Baghdad last week to help control what is not a civil war. Some people may say there is a civil war there, but, as White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters, it's not one because parts of the country are quiet.

Compare that with our civil war, which, as we recall, was not decided until the North won the horrific Battle of Worcester (Mass.) and the Southern navy was destroyed a month later at the famous Battle of Ludington (Mich.).

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), at the White House this spring for a meeting with other senators to discuss immigration with President Bush, was surprised when Bush approached him as the meeting broke up and observed: "Senator Martinez, you've been very quiet."

"That's Martinez," Menendez said, pointing to Mel Martinez -- Florida's junior senator and Bush's former secretary of housing and urban development.

"I'm Menendez."

Bush turned bright red, we're told. Señor Mayor?

The White House could not confirm the comment.

Michael Gerson , longtime Bush presidential speechwriter and adviser, joins the Council on Foreign Relations today as a senior fellow. He plans to write a book on the future of conservatism.