"Clash of civilizations is the main pivot of the US public diplomacy," Mehman-Parast said, addressing a number of students and researchers in Tehran on Sunday. "The American public diplomacy impairs the other side's reputation to attain its goals," he said, and added that the United States' Islamophobia and Iranophobia projects are meant to serve the same goal.

Several years ago I organized a conference designed to encourage those involved in the work of cultural diplomacy – policy makers, practitioners and cultural producers, public diplomacy officers, and academics; who too seldom talk to one another ...participants were asked to address what they took “culture” to mean in this context in the first place and to characterize its efficacy: what did they imagine “culture” does as part of the work of diplomacy?

Washington is also unable to understand the nature of this geographic region, and how the foreign element is one of the most important factors fueling the conflict in this region. The problem that Washington and its elite are having [in understanding this] is that they are looking at the world from the perspective of the American experience, which is very simple...

What do the controversies around the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, the eviction of American missionaries from Morocco earlier this year, the minaret ban in Switzerland last year, and the recent burka ban in France have in common? ...Fundamentally, they are all symptoms of...the "Clash of Civilizations," particularly the clash between Islam and the West.

This weekend's G20 summit is shaping up as an economic clash of civilizations – or at least a clash of EU and US economic views.