It’s no longer news that President Obama’s vaunted outreach to Islam has been a bust. Numerous polls over the past three years have shown that after a brief flurry of enthusiasm, regard for the United States among the world’s Muslims has declined precipitously. In some key countries, dislike for America is even lower than it was at the end of the administration of George W. Bush, whom liberal critics deemed culturally illiterate.

The State Department recently illustrated why reaching out has been such a failure. In mid-December, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton participated in a three-day international conference called the Istanbul Process regarding the implementation of United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 16/18, adopted in March. The resolution ostensibly seeks to combat religious intolerance and was a U.S.-sponsored alternative to language pushed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) that would have imposed global blasphemy laws against critics of Islam. Resolution 16/18 calls on states to “foster religious freedom and pluralism” and - in typical Obama administration apologetic style - stop religious profiling, which purportedly is a widespread American vice.

Read the complete story (Some news sites require registration)