Few legal boundaries stood between Florida Pastor Terry Jones and his plans to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

While most of the world voiced dismay at Pastor Jones' political statement, fearing it would incite violence and radicalize religious extremists overseas, Jones argued that was demonstrating against what he calls the extremism of Islam. Yesterday, the pastor decided to call off his campaign to burn the sacred text after reaching what he said was an "agreement" to meet with the people planning an Islamic cultural center and mosque near ground zero.

President Obama was in part awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his outreach to the Muslim world. The administration has made Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan top priorities, but some analysts say Obama has  neglected much of the Middle East. We ask Reza Aslan, author and contributing editor to the Daily Beast, and Abderrahim Foukara, the D.C. Bureau Cheif of al-Jazeera, to evaluate the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the president's Middle East diplomacy.

 

When the Obama administration dropped the use of the phrase "War on Terror" earlier this month, it marked one of its most significant foreign policy shifts, according to writer Reza Aslan. Aslan is the author of a new book called The Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror, where he claims the U.S. must win over religious extremists by framing the struggle in earthly, concrete terms.