Up until last summer, Rauf was invited by the State Department to engage in public diplomacy work and to share his experience as an American Muslim, making four trips abroad in 10 years. However, his visit to the Gulf countries during the summer of 2010 was his last.

9/11 was a fire that shaped a generation. It's true that Americans of all ages felt shock, fear, and uncertainty....Not all of them learned Arabic. Not all of them joined the military. Their lives may have been affected by Facebook and new social networks as much as by the visage of Osama bin Laden.

And we need effective international partners in government and civil society who can extend this effort to all the places where terrorists operate. To achieve these ends requires smart power, a strategy that integrates all our foreign policy tools...

Even if Boko Haram expand its operations and establish significant contacts with international terrorist organizations, the Obama administration should not let counterterrorism considerations trump these public diplomacy strategies.

nARCHITECTS, a burgeoning Brooklyn studio...has sent us images of its latest work: an arched bamboo pavilion designed to raise awareness about a Taiwanese forest under siege. The Forest Pavilion was conceived for an arts festival organized to promote preserving the landscape as a forest.

We cannot tolerate a new candidate for membership of the EU that is bringing in a frozen conflict ... You cannot have it both ways - candidate status moving nicely along and at the same time having a stranglehold on northern Kosovo. That sentiment is shared by a number of EU countries,

Low public support has been an issue from time to time. Here in this country we have two offices, and one includes an information center. So we are in public diplomacy. On that one I could also say that sometimes I could wish on more engagement on Ukrainian side.

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Arabs opinion is, in my view, unduly harsh on a well-intentioned president. After all, the president is fulfilling his commitment to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and is certainly not meddling in the Middle East to prop up unpopular dictators...