Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad.

Over the past two years, Ross, 39, has been incorporating those digital platforms into the daily lives of U.S. diplomats. Dozens of U.S. ambassadors around the world now use Facebook and Twitter, and the State Department boasts nine foreign-language Twitter accounts. These technologies, Ross argues, give the U.S. a new suite of tools for exerting "smart power" to advance its interests.

Al Qaeda’s attack on the United States ten years ago was a profound shock to both American and international public opinion... Anyone who flies or tries to visit a Washington office building gets a reminder of how American security was changed by 9/11

America's real strength, more than its military and economic power, is its "soft power," its moral authority. And this, too, was weakened: As the U.S. violated basic human rights like habeas corpus and the right not to be tortured...

The U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan... all demonstrates...that the United States is bent on dominating the Muslim world. A decade of public diplomacy has not dented this view, and polls of Muslim populaces indicate that they continue to have a poor opinion of the United States.

Those who follow attitudes toward the West on the Arab street need to make room these days for nuance. As the daily televised drama of revolt in Libya and Syria makes plain, the desperate internal struggles, unleashed during the Arab Spring, still command center stage.