Engaging the Muslim World
The future of American public diplomacy is an important and increasingly popular topic of inquiry as anti Americanism dominates parts of the Arab and larger Muslim world. Debate between American think tanks pursuing private foreign policy agendas and contemporary public diplomacy practitioners in search of a new way forward offers an appropriate starting point to assess a new set of challenges confronting Washington's most vital communication apparatus. While American public diplomacy experienced relative success during the Cold War era, a turning point, months prior to and after 9/11, illustrated that an outmoded one way transmission model of communication coupled with contemporary nation branding approaches was no match when selling America to a value defined, religion based, and socially constructed Arab world. During this period, a paradox emerged with America's post 9/11 communication efforts, which moved counter to the foundational goals of public diplomacy. This chapter argues that rather than establishing trust or applying long term two way communication opportunities with global Islamic communities, America's post 9/11 public diplomacy response centered on short term one sided messaging leading to a wider trust deficit with the Muslim world. Therefore, three principal components contributed to the paradox and failure of post 9111 public diplomacy: (i) the promotion of adverse foreign policies to target key audiences in the Arab world against the backdrop of a chaotic history of US Mid East foreign relations, (ii) relying on short term messaging that overlapped public diplomacy with nation branding, and (iii) discounting the role of both religion and culture when analyzing the social terrain of target audiences in the Muslim world.