The world's eyes will be on Libya's interim Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil and interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jabril, as the "Friends of Libya" conference gives the NTC its first major platform to address the international community...

Americans are not often heroes in the Arab world, but as nonstop celebrations unfold here in the Libyan capital I keep running into ordinary people who learn where I’m from and then fervently repeat variants of the same phrase: “Thank you, America!”

The political gamble has paid off as Qatar, perhaps the richest country in the world, emerges as a player able to deploy more than the soft power of TV channel Al Jazeera, which has fanned most of the region’s revolutions.

As one of the first countries to recognize the National Transitional Council, Qatar supplied the rebels with arms, uniforms, and $400 million in aid, while also helping the rebels sell their oil. Not least, Qatar provided invaluable moral support with its exhaustive coverage of the rebels on the Al Jazeera TV network, the emir’s powerful public diplomacy wing.

Our foreign policy should be directed at supporting resistance groups to dictators and funding radio, TV stations and the internet, in the same way the CIA did in the Cold War to undermine communism. Where is the Middle East equivalent to Radio Free Europe?

The course of events in Libya over the past months validates what I have termed the "just enough" doctrine. The Obama administration successfully resisted pressure -- from Libyan rebels, European allies and domestic critics alike...

Why is it that Obama has become the United States’ public diplomacy messenger at this critical time? The election of Barack Obama in November 2008 had marked a change in perceptions of U.S. public diplomacy in the Middle East, as it came to be defined by the persona of Obama himself.

Libya should become an occasion for the exercise of soft power. We should have an active embassy and offer the transitional national council advice on how to forge a new government. We should establish intelligence links with the new authorities and offer military aid. We should be willing to help them institute a new constitution, build political parties, and rewrite its school curriculum.