With a Hint to Twitter, Washington Taps Into a Potent New Force in Diplomacy.

The Obama administration says it has tried to avoid words or deeds that could be portrayed as American meddling in Iran's presidential election and its tumultuous aftermath. Yet on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]