I think you have it right Invictus. Professor Michael Howard in his excellent work "The Invention of Peace" talks about this in his last chapter prophetically called "The Tomahawk versus the Kalashnikov".

He observes that in many countries (without naming names) the only people espousing western values are a very small elite of whom the majority of the population are deeply suspicious. Pakistan is, I think, a case in point.

But it still begs the question: "what are we doing to win over Muslim moderates?". Where are the "alternative" schools to the madrassas? Where are the scholarships for muslim academics to visit the West? Where is the covert and overt support of moderate muslim opinion-makers and clerics? Where are the friendship societies, muslim-american solidarity committees, leagues of democratic muslim youth and the similar panoply of outreach organisations we employed to great effect during the cold war?

I do not accept for one minute the "existential threat argument" since I have first hand expereince that the average muslim doesn''t give a damn about that - which is why many try and migrate (illegally) to the West.

The only "outreach" we are doing these days seems to be with the bullet, the waterboard, and secret prisons, at least to the muslim mind.