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I agree with your analysis on some Muslim youth. I was just reading about the Iranian population under 25 years old. They are fairly moderate and want policies that bring them together with the west vs. being somewhat in exile or against it.
I think the open hand approach vs. fist is not necessarily bad and saying that we need to repair our image isn't either. These combined with the plan for more open discussions could move the ball forward. It's pretty locical to be in a position in a few months or year for us to say hey, we are doing things differently, we are working to become more moderate towards Muslims - that really does put it squarely in the Muslim country leaderships court. Given the flow of information, it's hard (unless it's N Korea or China) to keep this knowledge to a few people. Moreover, it could give more motivation to the masses to not accept hardline policies against the west.
Obviously this is the plan at hand - it's not perfect but I do think it has as much a chance as any firm hardline approaches so far. Bottom line is if it doesn't work, we can always retreat to a fist vs. open hand. I'm still fearful that Congress and the Whitehouse won't have the guts to make the right hard calls if/when needed. But that has been a challenging area for Dems for many years.
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06-02-2009, 04:12 PM
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