Only in 15 months after his historical Cairo speech, there are alarming signs that President Obama’s new engagement policy with the Middle East may soon find its place in history’s dustbin. The Obama administration’s withdrawal announcement of U.S. “combat” troops from Iraq by the end of August is nothing more than a PR campaign to rename the occupation.

President Barack Obama is aiming to underscore his commitment to a region weary of calamity as he travels to New Orleans on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The national debate about building a mosque near Ground Zero in New York is less about our freedom of religion than about the common sense and uncommon courtesy sometimes required to come together as Americans.

James K. Glassman is a rarity: a Republican who believes, and is willing to say, that President Obama "is the greatest public diplomat we've had in decades." Glassman, who served as undersecretary for public diplomacy under George W. Bush, also believes that the controversy over the planned Islamic community center will hurt the U.S. image among Muslims abroad. And he believes that Obama's task, like his predecessor's, is to replace the conspiratorial narrative about a United States as an enemy of Islam with one in which a tolerant, freedom-loving country does right by Muslims

Pakistani-American Leadership Center, an advocacy group working on the Capitol Hill, has urged President Barack Obama to visit Pakistan during his trip to Asia in November, arguing that the U.S. leader’s expression of support for flood-hit ally this way would greatly help ties between the two nations.

Sometimes effective public diplomacy can be conducted through a simple and unambiguous gesture. Such was the case when President Barack Obama recently commemorated the 50th anniversaries of 17 African nations’ independence at the White House. The gesture – or really a non-gesture – was to not invite a single African head of state to the event.

Sometimes effective public diplomacy can be conducted through a simple and unambiguous gesture. Such was the case when President Barack Obama recently commemorated the 50th anniversaries of 17 African nations’ independence at the White House.

For an Administration that started with the premise of improving relations with the “Muslim world,” as President Obama likes to put it, the results of the 2010 Arab Opinion Poll should be deeply disappointing. Having experienced soaring hopes for the dawning of a new era in U.S.-Arab relations, Arabs are now reacting with bitterness to the fact that no change has taken place.