Public Diplomacy Strategies of the United States in the Middle East: Comparative Assessment under Bush and Obama Administrations

This article reviews the comparative public diplomacy policy of the United States under Bush and Obama administrations in the Middle East. The main question in this article is that what are the differences of public diplomacy of the US under Bush and Obama administrations? In this regard, it is hypothesized that the September 11 attacks have increased the importance of the public diplomacy in the foreign policy of the US in the Middle East. According to the findings of this article, during the Bush administration, the foreign policy was based on the logic of unilateralism and warmongering and Mr. Bush did not believe in soft diplomacy and the usefulness of public diplomacy. Therefore, the public diplomacy was interpreted in the context of "war of ideas ". Hence, to win this war, the main aim of the mass media in this regard was not engagement, rather it was introducing American values and ideas to ensure the national interests of the United States. In contrast, during the Obama presidency, although the main purpose was the same, but he preferred to change the previous approach and advocated an idea based on multilateralism and engagement. Interaction and direct dialogue adopted by Obama have been showed through messages like the congratulation of Nowruz and Ramadan.