Cooptation  Coercion or Dialogue? A Critique of  Smart Power Informed Foreign Policy in US-Iran Relations as a Perequisite for Sustainable Diplomacy

While an increasing number of scholars attempt to develop alternatives to the current practice of diplomacy based on promoting national interests, these alternatives are neither taken seriously by political-practitionners nor by most scholars. To change this trend, this paper argues that the strategic ontology of diplomacy must be challenged first before moving on to alternatives such as sustainable diplomacy. In order to do so, this paper shows the effects of the ‘smart power’ informed U.S. foreign policy towards Iran from 2006 onwards. It shows that ‘smart power’ enabled to sustain this strategic ontology by changing means for others instead of calling the ends of U.S.-Iran diplomacy into question. Through a genealogical approach, this paper shows what ‘smart power’ did to U.S. foreign policies of cultural diplomacy, human rights promotion, broadcasting, student exchanges and sanctions toward Iran. As Said, this paper concludes that the future of U.S.-Iran relations remain bleak as long as both parties will not construct knowledge about the ‘other’ for the service of a better standard of co-existence (1997).