The really good news is contained in your quoted excerpt -- that we're dumping the 'sales' campaign. That was never going to work on any level and the whole ad agency / media approach was terribly flawed -- simply because it indulges in hype and overselling and is ignored by far more people in the world than the Ad and TV folks will ever admit. Don't think so? Look at your average commercial or TV show and consider your thoughts about them.

Now if we can just get the Services' PA folks to back off the same stupid approach in their PR efforts, we'll have achieved something.

I note the comments in the article re: the fact that we seem to see AQ and radical Islam as the defining challenges in the Arab world and that the people who live in the ME do not see that as true. I think that's wrong on a couple of levels; I think we see the challenge is seen as focused on us, not the Arab world, it just exists in the Arab world. A subtle but I think an important difference.

I would agree that the Arab world does not view those things as major threats (for obvious reasons) but believe the clash of perceptions and narratives resulting isn't terribly important. Folks in the ME are the ultimate pragmatists; they are selfish and expect others to be the same way; if you don't seem selfish, then there must be something wrong with you. We have been relatively unselfish in the western mode (partly to appease the left leaners here and about the world) to no significant benefit in the ME and this has helped make us in their perception as being 'up to something' more devious than the reality. The ME doesn't do "What you see is what you get."

Further this comment by a "ME expert:"
"Let's focus on the social crisis these countries are facing. Let's put the emphasis on developing the rule of law in Arab and Muslim governments," Gerges says. "Then we can talk about something genuinely new in the American public-diplomacy effort."
is counterintuitive to the announced new approach. One cannot avoid being overly meddlesome and interfering, even paternalistic, on one hand and tell the locals they have to develop the rule of law on the other hand. Particularly given the fact that the phrase "rule of law" is subject in the ME to two very different interpretations...