From Barack Obama, explaining the value of diplomacy and talk:
“What I do believe is that if we are engaged in speaking directly to the Arab street, and they are persuaded that we are operating in a straightforward manner, then, at the margins, both they and their leadership are more inclined and able to work with us….And if there are a bunch of 22- and 25-year-old men and women in Cairo or in Lahore who listen to a speech by me or other Americans and say: ‘I don’t agree with everything they are saying, but they seem to know who I am or they seem to want to promote economic development or tolerance or inclusiveness,’ then they are maybe a little less likely to be tempted by a terrorist recruiter.”
This is exactly the right formulation, and gives the lie to the endless cavalcade of right-wingers who like to pretend that Obama is some kind of foreign 
policy naif who’s convinced he can persuade the world’s terrorists and despots into laying down their arms by the power of sweet talk alone. As he’s made clear many times before, though, he’s not. He knows perfectly well that what he’s doing will take a lot of time and will work, at best, “at the margins.” It will reduce the recruiting power of terrorists a bit, it will reduce the intransigence of Middle Eastern governments a bit, and it will reduce the general hatred of American foreign policy a bit. But add up the bits over several years, and they can make a real difference.
Still, there’s no question it’s a long-term project. A recent PIPA poll, for example, shows that the Egyptian public is way more enthusiastic about Obama than about Bush. But click the link for more and you’ll see that their view of U.S. goals in the Middle East is every bit as negative as it’s ever been. This is going to be the work of many, many years.
