From Jim Glassman's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations this week:
Consider Muslim Americans. A Pew study in May found that foreign-born American Muslims, by a 70 to 3 percent majority, have an unfavorable view of Al Qaeda. By 78 to 18 percent, they are happy with their lives in America. They are optimistic, by a four-to-one margin, that a way will be found for Israel and the Palestinians to coexist. In all of these measures, Muslim Americans differ not only from Muslims in the Middle East and much of Asia but from Muslim immigrants in Europe. Yet American Muslims, by a margin of more than six to one, say that the war in Iraq was wrong. That compares to a split of roughly 50-50 at the time among the entire U.S. public. In other words, Muslims in America embrace U.S. values and participate actively in U.S. society, yet they differ with other Americans and with the U.S. government on policy. That is to say, policy is not the determining factor in their view of America. This is precisely the condition we should strive for in the world. People in other countries will not agree with our policies all the time, but we want them to have an accurate picture of those policies and the motivations behind them, and we want the disagreements to be constructive.
Glassman is set to replace Karen Hughes as the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, the job Senator Lieberman has described as "the closest thing we have in the U.S. government to a Supreme Allied Commander in the War of Ideas" against Islamist extremism. And he certainly strikes the right message here. We can't change our policies in the Middle East because al Qaeda's put a gun to our head, but we should strive to make sure "policy is not the determining factor" in how Muslims view America. Let them hate us for our Big Macs and cultural imperialism as the French do, and like the French, let them do nothing about it.