U.S. Diplomatic relations : How has it been used in Iran and North Korea?

This is a study of how the United States has used different diplomatic strategies towards Iran and North Korea. The concept of coercive diplomacy is defined and explained, in or-der to see if it has been used by the United States, and if so, to what extent. After giving a brief historical background between the U.S and the two countries, the study will put a fo-cus on what and why the Bush administration has acted the way they have in their diplo-matic relation with Iran and North Korea. The study presents cases where you can see par-allels between strategies used, but also some significant differences. The latter part of the study will examine the reasoning behind the different strategies used. Conclusion drawn from this study was that, in the case of Iran, the United States has been forced to act in a certain way due to the other conflicts they are involved with in the region, i.e. the war in Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan. Due to the fear for North Koreas al-ready existing nuclear arsenal, the U.S. has shown a more restricted diplomatic policy to-wards the country, not wanting to push them towards starting a nuclear war