Main Page | Month Archive | Email Updates | RSS Feed

The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Posts by Rob Asghar

WHEN SILENCE IS GOLDEN IN PD
JUN 22, 2009 - 2:32PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

An unyielding belief in strength over suppleness — constantly deploying the full force of both the sword and the mouth — may lie at the core of that old warrior Sen. John McCain's criticism that President Obama has been too passive in reacting to Iranian protests against that country's controversial elections.

Critics of McCain, including a number of conservative commentators, questioned the notion that the United States should engage more aggressively in the Iranian melee — even if just at the rhetorical level. Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that McCain and other colleagues "went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

THE CAIRO SPEECH: A QUICK ANALYSIS
JUN 4, 2009 - 2:00PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

Some early analyses of President Obama's historic address to the Muslim world in Cairo today have noted that some of Obama's professions of unity with the Muslim world merely echo words President Bush said after 9/11. The implication is that deeds, not words, matter.

Words can have remarkable power, in and of themselves. President Bush could say similar words to Obama – but when he also spoke about "crusades," or about posses that would bring back Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," it struck many Muslims as though he was just having too much fun with his new "war of... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

PD AS GLOBAL THERAPY: CAN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS GET ALONG?
MAY 7, 2009 - 2:07PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

The nascent Obama era has captured the imagination of people everywhere who believe that the foundational aspects of international relations involve human, not economic, interests, and that those interests involve healthy dialogue. That has led to a pushback from those who suspect that Obama is, well, a wimp.

The latter view was captured recently in a Wall Street Journal commentary by Josef Joffe, a German-born fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The passage that most riveted me was his conclusion, in which he tossed scalding abuse on the approach Obama has used in recent weeks:

IN PD, OBAMA SHOWS THAT STYLE IS SUBSTANCE
APR 8, 2009 - 1:48PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

The more things stay the same, the more they change.

An American president traveled to Iraq to praise American soldiers for giving that nation time to stand on its own feet. He told Muslims that the United States respected their religion. He expressed his commitment to an American military presence in Afghanistan. And he refused to back down from regularly violating Pakistani sovereignty as he fights anti-American forces there.

President Bush did all that too – and yet audiences around the world see such actions, when taken by Obama, as signaling a new day in American-global relations. Is it just... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (1) | Add Your Own

CANDOR AND CONFLICT
MAR 16, 2009 - 12:15PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

Writer Usama Hussein recently reported on an increase in both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks in the United Kingdom, including one attack against a London synagogue and one on the daughter of a Muslim leader in London.  The fact that such violence came after flare-ups in Gaza showed many nations that a top public diplomacy priority involves facilitating real dialogue, within and beyond their borders, among Jews and Muslims.  Indeed, tensions and misunderstandings between those groups form a spider’s web that spans the globe.

Many anti-Western resentments in the Islamic world stem from a notion that certain powers of the West... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (1) | Add Your Own

Previous posts  1 2 3 >