NJ: Gallup released a poll Tuesday that showed only 15 percent of respondents from the Middle East and North Africa approve of U.S. leadership. Does this surprise you?

Weber: It's too early to tell. They haven't seen any change on the ground. What's needed in the Middle East from our country's standpoint is a sustained effort over a period of time, not the on-again/off-again approach. It's not going to be easy. There are decades and decades of skepticism of the West ingrained in the psyches of people in the Arab world, and that's not going to change on a dime simply because we have a new president. What we have is an opening, an opportunity to change the minds of people. And I think the president has taken the right first steps, and if they see that we're persistent and consistent, I think that we can slowly, over time, change minds.

NJ: What's your take on Obama's recent outreach toward the Muslim world?

Weber: I think it ought to be tremendously encouraging to everybody who cares about establishing a new relationship with the Muslim world. Certainly the members of our task force specifically wanted to see the new president reach out to the Muslim world in his inaugural address. We briefed both the campaigns prior to the election and made that request. And President Obama did that. That's very good.

Beyond that, we also talked about the importance of the Middle East, and more broadly, of diplomacy being the first tool in our dealings with that part of the world. President Obama has clearly made that a priority with the appointment of Senator [George] Mitchell and Ambassador [Richard] Holbrooke -- and maybe more to come -- as special envoys to deal with those most troublesome issues in the Middle East.

And of course, giving the interview with Al Arabiya is a tremendously important symbolic measure, but symbolism matters a lot in this part of the world. It hearkens it back to the report that Secretary Albright and I did for the Council on Foreign Relations a few years ago on the promotion of democracy in the Arab world, in which we argue that it was very important for Americans and the American government not to ostracize independent media such as Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya just because we don't like a lot of their reporting. They are legitimate in the eyes of most people in the Arab world.

NJ: What else do you think Obama could do on that front?

Weber: He is off to a very strong start; we ought to all acknowledge that and be happy about it. If we can act quickly to try to escalate the number of cultural exchanges between [the U.S. and the countries of the Islamic world], that would be good. Any action that we can take on the economic development front to show that we really care about the economies particularly of those countries that are not wealthy and oil-producing would be very well-received.

NJ: A recent Washington Post article quotes experts saying that al-Qaida has launched a "deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign" against Obama. Is this something you have observed, and do you see this as a threat to the U.S.?

Weber: I certainly think that we ought to take it seriously. These are people who have proven that they can murder, and so we ought to take any threat that they make seriously. But I also see it as a sign of desperation. Not all the news is bad in this part of the world. The good news is that al-Qaida is dramatically less popular with the Muslim populations of the world than it was in the wake of 9/11, at which point many people in that part of the world considered them heroes. That's no longer the case anymore. They are losing popular support. They're now afraid that, with a new president who has a chance to turn a page in the Middle East, that they will lose even greater support, and so they're attempting frantically to demonize President Obama. It ought to be somewhat frightening to us even as we recognize that it's a sign of their failure, not their success.

NJ: How do you think Obama's early foreign policy moves are resonating with Israelis?

Weber: President Obama went to great lengths to reassure the Israelis during the campaign that he was going to be strong for Israel. He, like every other president, has a very fine line to walk. He must at the same time reassure Israelis that we are absolutely committed to the security of Israel while assuring the Arab populations that we're prepared to act as an even-handed broker between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Israelis and the Arab governments that surround them. That's the difficult balancing act that every president has faced and will face....

I would specifically say that -- watching the Israeli campaign as we go into the last couple weeks of the election in Israel -- it does not seem to me that he's made any missteps, because if he had they would become a big issue. America can either intentionally or unintentionally affect Israeli politics dramatically, as we did during the Clinton administration. It seems to me that this president, so far, has not had that impact, and that's a good thing.

NJ: How does the U.S.'s relationship with Iran factor into our country's engagement of the Muslim world?

Weber: The Bush administration did step up its engagement with Iran over the last many months, and this president has pledged to step it up even further. We think -- those of us that issued this report -- that that's appropriate. But, speaking just for myself, I would be very cautious about any dramatic actions at all with regard to Iran until after they've had their next elections. Anything the United States does could conceivably have an impact on the election, and we don't want to have an impact on the elections, we want to see what happens.... That's my only caveat. I think we need to proceed slowly with any ramped-up engagement with Iran because we don't want to inadvertently tip the scales, particularly toward [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad in those elections. So my advice is no dramatic action until after they've had an election.