Editor's Note

This issue begins with an article by Javier Gil Guerrero discussing the Carter administration's efforts in 1979–1980 to launch a public diplomacy campaign that would help moderate extremist Islam and overcome the hostility of Islamic countries and groups. The program began in 1979 primarily in response to the Islamic revolution in Iran and the subsequent seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and attack on the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, but it soon expanded into a much larger effort after Soviet troops invaded and occupied Afghanistan. President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, sensed that militant Islam could become an ally in U.S. efforts to counter the Soviet military occupation. Thus, in addition to stepping up the public diplomacy and propaganda campaign vis-à-vis Islam, the Carter administration offered weaponry, training, and financial support to Islamic guerrillas in their jihad against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan—a program that continued over...