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In the article, the author examines the relationship of the U.S. with Muslim countries, particularly Iran. Also cited are the murder case involving Iranian Abdul Molavi, who was killed by his American wife, who was later acquitted, the high animosity between the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and the Iranian government, Trump's Muslim ban, the policymaking strategy of the U.S. toward an Islamic country, as well as the works of several historians on the U.S. relations with Islamic countries, including Heather Sharkey, Henry Gorman, and Matthew Jacobs.

Few studies have empirically examined how media stereotypes of Muslims influence Americans’ support for public policies exclusively harming Muslims. Across three studies, we tested the short-term and long-term effects of news portraying Muslims as terrorists on Americans’ support for public policies harming Muslims domestically and internationally. Study 1 revealed that exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for military action in Muslim countries. Study 2 revealed that exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for public policies that harm Muslims domestically and internationally; this effect was fully mediated by perceptions of Muslims as aggressive. Experimental results from Study 3 revealed that exposing participants to negative Muslim media footage, relative to neutral or no-video footage, increased perceptions of Muslims as aggressive, increased support for harsh civil restrictions of Muslim Americans, and increased support for military action in Muslim countries. Exposure to positive Muslim footage yielded opposite results. We discuss the importance of media in exacerbating aggressive attitudes and public policies in the context of intergroup relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on science diplomacy of U.S. President Barack Obama's "New Beginning" speech at Cairo University on June 4, 2009. Topics discussed include speech launched the Cairo Agenda program to build trust between Muslim-majority countries and U.S; science diplomacy in the case of Cairo Agenda discourses; and public sphere as a discursive space for informational and cultural exchange.

The article focuses on the occupation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Syria and the renaming of the group as Islamic State (IS). Topics include internal dispute of Islamic sects, the role of U.S. in containing the IS, and civil war in Syria. It alleges that strategic ploy of the U.S. government to weaken the IS and combat development of the IS in other nations, and the Middle East is turning out to be an IS safety zone.

This article focuses on a seeming contradiction between ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘Islamophilic’ approaches in contemporary Western policies and discourses on the Middle East. While Islamophobia continues to shape some domestic policies of Western states and provide ideological justification for the wars they wage abroad, ‘Islamophilic’ tendencies in foreign policy have also emerged, especially in responses to the ‘Arab Spring’. Not clearly noted in Western public discourse, this represents a historical continuation of Western support for Islamism common during the Cold War, but is also a shift from the Islamophobic discourse of the post-cold war period, especially since 9/11. While Islamophobic and Islamophilic discourses may appear to be opposites, the paper argues that they represent two sides of the Orientalist logic, continuing to reduce understanding of Middle Eastern societies and politics to a culturalist dimension. Unlike traditional Orientalism, they treat Middle Eastern people as political subjects, but approach them as defined by their culture and religion. They define ‘moderate’ Islamism as the typical (and preferred) politics of the people of the region. Focusing on specific recent developments, the paper suggests that, rather than paving the way to more peaceful relations with the region or to internal peace and stability there, the Islamophilic shift in Western policy may rather lead to new waves of catastrophes by further destabilising and fragmenting the region, threatening to evoke new waves of Islamophobia in the West. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the role of hostility perception in conflict and US-Muslim world relations in particular. After exploring perception's role in conflict, the author proposes the hostility perception theory, which states that the perception that the other is hostile toward oneself or one's own group, identity, or culture tends to exacerbate conflict and conflict behaviour. This happens through framing the lens through which actions are viewed, perpetuating self-fulfilling cycles of escalatory behaviour, and creating significant obstacles to problem-solving, relationship-building, and reconciliation. The paper subsequently analyses the role of hostility perception in US-Muslim world relations and the impact that reducing hostility perception can have in improving relations, using survey data and original fieldwork studies. The paper concludes that addressing hostility perception can play a key role in enabling understanding of parties' real interests, needs, and goals; relationship-building; and collaborative problem-solving to improve US-Muslim world relations, and makes recommendations for future analysis and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes Islam and Muslim-Western relations following the election of U.S. president Barack Obama. It discusses U.S. policies and those of Muslim countries, the possibility of Muslim reform, and prospects for future relations. The article explores reaction in Muslim countries to the election of Obama following the policies of the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair, particularly regarding the War on Terror, the supposed perception of Western crusades against Islam, and foreign policy. The author discusses a speech delivered by Obama in Cairo, Egypt, in 2009, and U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author also discusses various Muslim attitudes toward the U.S.

The article looks at the cultural dimension of the fraught and conflictual relationship between the U.S. and many Muslims and Muslim countries as of 2011. The author identifies elements of American culture, including material acquisitiveness, individualism, and hedonism, which he says Muslims find contrary to Islamic values of thrift and self-restraint. He notes that U.S. analysts typically discount the cultural dimension of U.S.-Muslim relations and says this leads to erroneous interpretations of events, citing the scandal over U.S. soldiers' treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

The article presents a reprint of the article "Pakistan: The Most Dangerous Place in the World," by Dr. Larry P. Goodson, which appeared originally in the "Strategic Studies Institute Newsletter" of the U.S. Army War College. In the article the author discusses the five major reasons that he feels make Pakistan the most dangerous foreign policy problem that the U.S. faces in 2009.

The article offers the author's views on U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign-policy strategy for Iran, in light of his Now-Ruz, or the Iranian New Year, message on March 21, 2009. The perception that Islamic countries are becoming more powerful than the United States and the concern of U.S. allies that President Obama is more interested in promoting relations with U.S foes than with the allies are discussed.

Indonesia, the world''s fourth largest country, third largest democracy and home to the world''s largest community of Muslims, has returned to the international stage. Indonesia's membership in a number of important global communities–it resides physically in Asia but is part of the broader Muslim world, the developing world, and the community of democracies–makes it an important international actor. Many Americans assume that common democratic values will translate into shared foreign policy goals and cooperation between the United States and Indonesia. The two countries do share significant interests, such as counter terrorism, maritime security, and a wariness of China, but also hold starkly different positions on the Middle East peace process and global trade issues. Democracy provides opportunities for the two-thirds of Indonesians who hold anti-American views to influence foreign policy, making it costly for Indonesian leaders to cooperate with the United States. Indonesia''s return is good news for America, but the relationship needs to be managed skillfully to maximize benefits for both sides. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The image of the United States in the Middle East has plummeted dramatically since 9/11. To stem growing anti-Americanism and improve America's image, the U.S. State Department has substantially increased public diplomacy staffs and program funding in selected Middle East countries. Although officials stationed in the Middle East give their public diplomacy operations favorable ratings, the image of the United States remains bad and continues to decline despite occasional upward spikes. In this article the author argues that television entertainment programs, particularly American situation comedies broadcast throughout the Middle East, can be another reason for the continued low regard for Americans and for the United States. An analysis of three American television programs (The West Wing, That 70's Show, and Friends) shows that the images presented by the programs are distorted and portray an unrealistic picture of life in America. The fact that the attitudes of Middle Easterners are more in tune with television drama images than with their more realistic public diplomacy counterparts leads to the conclusion that the shows trump the State Department's public diplomacy efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic culture is an amalgam of a country's set of shared beliefs, assumptions, and narratives that shape its strategic decision-making process. This article evaluates Iran's evident pursuit of nuclear weapons in light of four key elements of its strategic culture as an attempt to ascertain Iran's goals for developing these weapons. These four elements include: (1) an all-encompassing conviction in Shia Islam as the bedrock of the regime's political legitimacy and the country's national identity; (2) a hypernationalistic belief in Iran's rightful place as the leader of the Islamic civilization and as a regional hegemon; (3) a pervasive sense of external and internal vulnerability; and (4) an ingrained perception that the U.S. desires to dominate and eventually destroy the Islamic civilization. The evaluation of these elements strongly augurs that a nuclear-armed Iran is not likely to employ these weapons offensively due to its fear of retaliation and the constraining interests within its regime's political structure. Rather, its drive toward a nuclear-weapons capability is to provide Iran with a defensive deterrent that will advance its desires for regional hegemony and mitigate its pervasive sense of insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What led to the calamitous drop in Iran's oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economics have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran's monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents that could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as "that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own." The declassification of the papers of Brent Scowcroft, who worked in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the origins of the Iranian Revolution. They reveal that in 1976 the US and Saudi Arabia colluded to force down oil prices, inadvertently triggering a financial crisis that destabilized Iran's economy and weakened the Shah's hold on power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 has drastically altered the strategic and security landscape in the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East. This article examines Iranian, Iraqi, and Saudi security perceptions of and policies towards their immediate shared region following the American invasion. It argues that despite other changes, their policies are still driven more by national interests and less by ideological orientations. The argument is three-fold. First, Iraq is likely to be a passive player in the emerging regional security system with a minimal role in shaping the regional security environment. Instead, developments in Baghdad are likely to be influenced by the cooperation/rivalry between other regional and international powers. Second, ideology remains an important determinant of the Iranian and Saudi foreign policies, but, contrary to much professional speculation, these policies are and will continue to be driven less by ideological orientations and more by realist national interests. Third, in the long run, however, deepening sectarian strife will further destabilize the region and threaten Western interests. Accordingly, the Persian Gulf policies of United States and other global actors should seek above all to contain sectarian division in Iraq and throughout the region. The most promising approach is inclusive, including an understanding between Washington and Tehran, as well as serious efforts to make peace with Israel, to enhance the prospects for regional stability and world peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the critical role that public diplomacy plays in improving the deteriorating image of the United States in the Muslim world. The authors argue that both public diplomacy and policies, including those on civil liberties, are vital to U.S. success in the war on terrorism and that the next U.S. president must designate this effort as a matter of highest national security importance. Many in the Muslim world believe that the war on terrorism is essentially a war on Islam; this view impedes the success of an effective foreign policy strategy. Previous efforts of public diplomacy have lacked funding, energy, focus, and an integrated strategy. The authors define six principles to improve America's security through winning the war of ideas, including addressing civil liberties concerns, and engaging diverse constituencies in the Muslim world. Finally, the authors describe ten public diplomacy initiatives to improve U.S-Muslim world relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda has used "franchises" to expand its global reach. Al Qaeda offered these franchises very little, except its name, reputation, and ideology. Because of al Qaeda's minimal investment, destroying the franchise groups will accomplish very little against the mother organization. Instead, the United States should use al Qaeda's franchises as a vehicle to attack al Qaeda's name, reputation, and ideas. Al Qaeda's franchises are more prone to strategic mistakes than their namesake; those errors should be used as the cornerstone of a narrative to highlight al Qaeda's ideological failings. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been particularly mistake-prone. Three mistakes in particular offer opportunities to undermine al Qaeda's ideology: attacks against Muslim civilians, the declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq, and infighting with other Iraqi insurgent groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Al Qaeda today is a resilient organization, as evidenced by the London attacks of 2005, its resurgence in Pakistan, the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, and its influence on the war in Iraq. While al Qaeda is not strong enough to launch an attack inside the United States in the next five years, it will continue to train militants for successful attacks in Europe. Al Qaeda's leadership is likely to remain in place for years, and it is unlikely to lose its safe haven on the Afghan-Pakistan border in the near term, although it has suffered real reverses in Iraq. Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups will, in the long term, implode because of their unrestrained violence against fellow Muslims and lack of a real plan for governance, both of which make it difficult for them to transform into a genuine, political mass movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the journal's theme of presenting a portfolio on the terrorist threat which the next U.S. President would find useful in making policy decisions concerning the War on Terrorism, relations with Islamic countries, and al Qaeda.

The article examines U.S. foreign relations with Islamic countries. During the Cold War, U.S. attention on Islamic countries was centered in the Middle East, as was that of the Soviet Union, and relations varied from country to country on ideological or practical grounds of realpolitik. The debate over U.S. foreign policy following the Cold War was altered by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which led to anti-Muslim sentiments in the U.S., and the identification of the terrorists as part of a broader Islamic political movement hostile to U.S. interests. This too has resulted in different policies towards different Islamic countries, with the U.S. allied with Pakistan at the same time it has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Islamic countries whose governments wish to cooperate with the U.S. face strongly adverse public opinion which views the U.S. as a hostile hegemonic power.

The article focuses on democracy in Islamic countries. Particular attention is given to how hospitable Muslim nations are to Western types of regimes in 2008. Article topics include whether Islam is compatible with liberal political administrations, the foreign policies the United States and its allies have with Muslim countries, the issue of global security in the 21st century, as well as information on various historical events in which democratic politics created social, economic, or political unrest in predominately Islamic countries

Encounters with the Islamic world date back to the beginning of the United States. Early cultural producers imagined what such encounters meant, relating them principally to U.S. domestic life and the quest for an imagined community and social harmony deployed in the service of bourgeois interests, not unlike today. An important example is Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive (1797). The author excavates the discourse of race, empire, and civilization in Tyler's novel and dialectically links it to the culture of resistance produced by those "others" Tyler sought to exclude from the civilized community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the developments in the effort of the United States to establish long-term stability in the Middle East with emphasis on the policy otherwise known as the Freedom Agenda. The policy aims to effect democratic transformation in the region as well as reduce the appeal of extremist ideology. However, the author contends that the Arab democratization did not bring the desired results as radical groups with anti-American views still wield influence in the region.

The article discusses a conspiracy theory by two professors, one from the University of Chicago and the other from Harvard University, that says that Middle East policy in the United States is controlled by pro-Israelis and right-wing evangelicals. Historical events showing the United States' decisions for and against Israeli support are given. When the U.S. and Great Britain blocked off shipments to Israel during the Arab army invasion of 1948, Israel was only able to survive with sales of arms from Czechoslovakia. The author says that he is pessimistic regarding peace in the Middle East unless Israelis and Palestinians can find a lasting solution in a manner that includes both sides searching for compromises that are acceptable for all.

The article offers an update on achievements of science envoys launched by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 which calls for the U.S. and the Muslim countries to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy and create green jobs among others. Topics covered include the role of envoys in the establishment of closer bilateral science and technology relationships with the U.S. and the scientist-to-scientist contacts established under the programs and lectures delivered.

In this article the authors explore whether U.S. president Barack Obama's record on promoting international science fulfilled the promise of his early rhetoric. They cite a speech given by Obama at Cairo University in Egypt six months after his 2009 inauguration in which he spoke of promoting international science cooperation to create new jobs, meet global challenges, and as a basis for improving relations between the U.S. and Muslim-majority countries. Topics include a historical overview of U.S. science diplomacy and international development, the reduction of U.S. government research and development (R&D) budgets under the Obama Administration, and the authors' conclusion that Obama's initiative on international scientific collaboration remains a work in progress.

The author cites the late political scientist Samuel Huntington's concept of the clash of civilizations, such as the clash between Islam and the U.S. The author cites Huntington's argument that the balance of power among civilization is shifting, wherein Islam is exploding demographically, the U.S. is declining in relative power, and Asia is economically ascendant. The author remarks that the U.S.'s universalist pretensions are bringing it into conflict with other civilizations.

The article focuses on the political relation between Iran and the U.S. It states that the lack of dialogue between the two nations grew from the unwillingness of different U.S. administrations to engage with Iran. U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he is willing to give in to an engagement with Iran, but the country's major political crisis may no longer legitimate to make diplomatic moves. It notes that Iran may not welcome the efforts of Obama.