Mike,

It is not what we have to offer so much as what it is we have persistently denied through our presence and influence over the governments of the region.

What we have to offer now is as simple as "De Oppresso Liber." These are populaces who have had little option other than to turn to organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and AQ for support and leadership in challenging outside influences and governments at home that have come to act with a growing impunity to the concerns of the common people.

Currently AQ is the UW force in the region, AQ is the De Oppresso Liber force in the region. When we send US forces to help these governments build "security force capacity" far too often that is capacity to suppress their own populace rather than capacity to protect their populace against external threats or terrorism from non-state actors that we lump as "VEOs."

So what we offer is simple:

1. Stop being an obstacle to good governance (no more enabling of poor governance or capacity building that we can reasonably assume will be used far more to suppress than protect)

2. Start competing AQ IAW our own professed principles as a nation. Not to overly intervene or demand that other act, think, govern or pray as we do, but rather to help establish clear limits for internal disputes to be resolved within; and to focus on repairing the dysfunctional nature of the relationships we have with so many of these governments (and with so many of the non-state actors as well).

For the US we slid with increasing speed down the slippery slope of involvement in this region following WWII. Much of Cold War Containment was waged here. Little of Cold War Containment was rolled back here as it was elsewhere. The local autocrats liked the lives they had developed and the protection to maintain them. We liked the certainty of these relationships as well, with the access to resources and key sea lanes that are critical to our economy. We just need to find a new, less abusive of the people of the region, approach.