America’s soft power and bin Laden’s soft support

In the Washington Monthly, public opinion researcher Kenneth Ballen investigates the motivations of young radical Islamists.  They do not, he finds, detest Western people or values; nor do they “hate us for our freedoms,” as President Bush has attested.  A surprising and overwhelming number of these young radicals actually desire visas to the United States.  However, there is an almost universal sentiment that the United States and the West are hostile toward Islam.  Ballen concludes that in increasing student visas, opening up trade agreements, and augmenting direct aid to the Muslim world, the United States can “adopt policies that reveal a different side of American power—one that demonstrates respect and compassion by improving the lives of individual Muslims.” 

Perhaps with such interaction, perspectives like that of American Muslim Andrea Useem – elaborated in this Washington Post column – will flourish.  Useem describes her desire for an Islam that can acknowledge that “Western values” are not necessarily inferior to “Islamic values,” one that is not dominated by Salafi conservatism or bitterness over the American war on terror.