- ActivitesHuman RightsIslamic Issues
- April 18, 2009
- 2 minutes read
Constructive Criticism for the Muslim World?

In the Wall Street Journal, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says the U.S. government should speak out forcefully on human rights issues in the Islamic world, because of our potential to influence debates in the region. “We — the West — are the unrivalled agent of change in the Middle East. Modern Islamic history — including the Bush years — ought to tell us that questions non-Muslims pose can provoke healthy discussions.” In particular, he writes that “no effort is likely to bear more fruit in the long term than having American officials become public champions of women’s rights in Muslim lands.”