US public diplomacy attempts to confront Islamic State
Richard Stengel, the latest US official tasked with trying to improve the US image abroad, concedes that trying to rebut those who believe the US created the Islamic State sometimes provokes the feeling that "you are beating your head against a wall."
The Barack Obama administration is focusing its public diplomacy efforts on persuading “swing voters” in the Muslim world that the group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) is a bigger threat to them than US policies, the State Department’s top communications official says.
Richard Stengel, a former managing editor at Time who became undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs six months ago, told a Washington audience Sept. 16 that the US aim was not to fight a “battle of ideas” with committed members of IS, which he called “a criminal, savage, barbaric organization.”
Asked by Al-Monitor how the United States could convince the wider Muslim audience that the country was not somehow responsible for the rise of the terrorist group — a commonly held view in the Middle East because of the US invasion of Iraq and support, albeit tepid, for opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria — Stengel conceded, “This is a very difficult problem. The good news is that pretty much everybody hates [IS]. The bad news is that a lot of people think we are responsible, which is absurd.”
“How do you rebut a lie?” Stengel continued. “Sometimes you just feel like you are beating your head against a wall.” His aim, he said, is “not so much to persuade the people who think we are the root of all evil but the swing voters.”
