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In the contemporary international order, marked by increasing global interdependence and complex power relations, understanding the role of the United States as a global actor is crucial. This paper explores the interplay between American identity, discourse, and U.S. foreign policy rhetoric, particularly in its engagement with the Middle East. Rooted in the concept of American exceptionalism, it investigates the selective and strategic nature of U.S. rhetoric towards key Middle Eastern actors. The research integrates linguistics and international relations, with Critical Discourse Analysis as the primary theoretical framework. By addressing research questions concerning American identity, discursive strategies and their linguistic realisations, and rhetorical selectivity, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of U.S. foreign policy rhetoric towards the Middle East.

Xi Jinping cast himself as the sole herald of China's foreign policy. Following his lead, many observers base their assessments of the Chinese government's intentions on his statements alone. However, China's foreign policy rhetoric is still shaped by various actors within the government. This article examines variation in China's foreign policy rhetoric by examining how China's national interest is constructed and whether it has become more consistent the longer Xi Jinping is in office through quantitative and qualitative content analyses. It finds significant differences in emphasis between policy-making levels and between the General Secretary/State President, Premier, State Council Information Office, and Foreign Minister. Hence, to decipher China's foreign policy intentions, researchers should also consider foreign policy statements by actors other than the General Secretary and be attentive to differences in statements by different actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Days before the French surrender to Nazi Germany in June 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville that was broadcast worldwide. This speech marks the moment FDR began in earnest his campaign of public persuasion in support of U.S. intervention in World War II. He executed three rhetorical maneuvers that invited Americans to appreciate the Axis in a more threatening light in this address. He crafted a narrative that cast the war as being between only two sides, subverted the anti-interventionist position through stark imagery, and inverted his longstanding good neighbor metaphor to morally condemn Italy. By performing a close reading analysis of this address, this paper helps students of communication better understand the interpretive frameworks that emerged in Roosevelt's time and continue to saturate present debates over U.S. foreign policy, including the American response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines how the John Quincy Adams's foreign policy maxim of "we do not go in search of monsters to destroy" has been appropriated in contemporary foreign policy, including the recent 2016 presidential campaign, arguing his aphorism are authorizing words that validate and ratify the positions of pundits, politicians, and policymakers of not only critics of U.S. foreign policy, but those who defend it. Mapping Quincy Adams's aphorism allows us to explore the boundaries and direction of America's role in the world and how it impacts America's exceptionalist ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ronald Reagan's role in closing out the Cold War remains controversial. Perspectives alternatively dismiss him as peripheral or dangerous, celebrate him as a “Cold Warrior,” or credit cautious pragmatism in his second term for inducing Soviet reform and eventual collapse. This essay offers a rhetorical analysis of Reagan's 1987 and 1988 National Security Strategy (NSS) documents that both challenges and reconciles such views. The key terms of the NSSs reveal a “both/and” perspective that creatively blended both principle and pragmatism in Reagan's worldview and policies, not simply his rhetoric. Such a perspective is necessary to understand the relationship between principle and pragmatism in rhetoric and to more clearly evaluate Reagan's role in ending the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay examines Texas representative Ron Paul’s foreign policy discourse during the 2008 presidential campaign. The author argues that Paul encased his opposition to America’s foreign policy within a secular jeremiad. Although Paul failed to win any of the Republican primaries, his opposition to America’s involvement with Iraq and other parts of the globe is a microcosm of a larger debate occurring among U.S. foreign policy elites on the extent of America’s role within the world and about the very nature of its exceptional status. This analysis informs a theoretical understanding of American exceptionalism and interrogates a larger debate in U.S. foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay explores the composition of United States post-Cold War foreign policy rhetoric under President Bill Clinton. We contend that Bill Clinton offered a coherent and comprehensive foreign policy narrative for the direction of U.S. foreign policy discourse in the post-Cold War world. Specifically, we analyze the “new partnership” narrative that Clinton articulated in his 1998 trip to Africa as a representative anecdote for the larger body of his foreign policy discourse. This “new partnership” narrative was structured by three narrative themes: (1) America’s role as world leader; (2) reconstituting the threat environment; (3) democracy promotion as the strategy for American foreign policy. These three themes can be found throughout Clinton’s foreign policy rhetoric and serve as the basis for a foreign policy narrative used by Clinton, and perhaps, future administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During George Bush's presidency the Cold War drew to a close and his administration triumphed in the Gulf War. Some viewed these events as a harbinger of a new world order. Basking in the success of the Gulf War, Bush's approval ratings soared, and prominent Democrats reconsidered challenging him in 1992. Foreign policy themes might have seemed a natural emphasis in campaign rhetoric. Yet, on the eve of the election, Bush abandoned efforts to rally the public with such appeals. This article identifies primary metaphorical themes employed by Bush to define foreign policy reality. Bush's rhetoric was fundamentally ordered by the orientational metaphor of war. Other themes reinforced central premises of the war metaphor and reflected enduring premises of American exceptionalism. How- ever, critical constraints blunted Bush's rhetorical intentions, and perhaps nullified constraints presidents traditionally have harnessed to define rhetorical situations to fit a preferred world view. A disjuncture between rhetorical expectations and intentions beset the ad- ministration as the 1992 election approached. The electorate turned an anxious gaze to domestic politics and the condition of the economy. Furthermore, the war metaphor met a public demonstrably leery of U.S. meddling in the internal politics of other countries. Preference for the war metaphor, finally, represented a significant challenge to the political identity of Bush and the Republican Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]