"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
Alan Bock tries to draw some. In a nutshell: solid police work, um, works. Police state tactics aren’t necessary. And invading and occupying Muslim lands is counterproductive.
He also makes a frequently neglected point, that over the long term the U.S. stands a better chance of encouraging cultural change in the Muslim world by being an example of freedom, rather than trying to impose it (a rather paradoxical idea to begin with).
I think, in addition to being an example of freedom instead of trying to impose it, it might help things if the U.S. stopped interfering with efforts by people in countries with opressive governments to actually give themselves freedom. U.S. support for dictators and opressive governments in places like Chile, Cuba and Vietnam (and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt today) did as much to undermine the cause of freedom as any attempts to actively oppose overthrow regimes like the Taliban and Saddam.
Good point – “First, do no harm” seems like a sensible principle here as elsewhere.
Iran is another good example of the phenomenon I’d say.
A Thinking Reed 
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