The United States Cultural Diplomacy in Iran refers to the use of soft power of cultural diplomacy by the US government towards Iran in order to achieve its own interests.
Basis
Basically, cultural diplomacy means trying to be aware of, participate in and influence the public opinion of institutions and governments of other countries, and one of the most sensitive issues of cultural management is the mechanism of using cultural capacities to influence the public opinion of other countries. None of the influential elements in the foreign policy of countries is as stable and effective as cultural diplomacy. In this process, the culture of a nation is presented to the outside world and the specific cultural characteristics of nations are exchanged at bilateral and multilateral levels. Cultural diplomacy builds stronger trust and expands ties between nations. On the one hand, cultural diplomacy is the art of applying and cultural actions of the agents of the country of origin and on the other hand it depends on the degree of penetration in the destination country to what extent that region or country or community may be influenced by this cultural actions and its components. Therefore, cultural diplomacy is used as one of the most important tools of power (soft power) by governments today. The positive result of the cultural exchanges of societies and the resulting communications is global peace. Cultural diplomacy is a bargain to reach agreements and goals that unite human societies.
The negative dimension of cultural diplomacy is its use as a tool for influence. In this way, ordinary people and thought leaders are targeted by cultural diplomacy in order to impose effective co-operation on their governments. Cultural diplomacy is a clear example of the exercise of soft power, which allows countries to influence the other side to force it to cooperate through elements such as culture, values and ideas. In this case, cultural diplomacy is a tool for long-term influence in other countries, which will have negative consequences. Foreign policy achieves its goals through compromise instead of war (hard power) through cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy can take the form of governments communicating with the people of other countries. The content or format of this type of cultural communication may include protesting against the actions and political positions of the government and officials of the destination country and disturbing its public opinion. Creating a critical atmosphere inside the destination countries and interfering in their social and cultural issues can also be concealed in the form of cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy can secretly impose the favorable positions of origin countries on the minds of the people of the destination countries. In general, the ideal goals of cultural diplomacy are:
Gaining international prestige among peoples and nations and influencing their behavior Creating new scientific and cultural institutions in order to establish more stable relations between different communities Accurate understanding of the principles in the culture of other nations and research into the cultural and social roots of other societies with the aim of promoting mutual understanding between nations
And its principles are: Understanding the cultural policies of the country of origin Understanding the cultural policies of the destination country Recognizing culture as soft power Public opinion as a method and ground for exercising soft power