It cannot possibly be in the Indonesian government's interest to continue to shelter an organization [like Jemaah Islamiyah] with such violent intentions. But the country's officials may have concluded that it is even riskier to support American policies. According to the latest survey conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, Indonesian views of the United States, which were largely favorable before the invasion of Iraq, plummeted to 15 percent favorable right after. In Pew's June 2005 survey, 80 percent of Indonesians feared that the United States would attack their country.

Fortunately, the Pew figures also reveal positive trends that suggest another way forward for the United States and its allies. In three years, Indonesians' support for suicide bombing has declined from 27 percent to 15 percent, and confidence in Osama bin Laden is down from 58 percent to 35 percent.

If one American policy can be correlated with improvements in Indonesian attitudes toward the United States, it is aid for tsunami victims in Aceh. The Pew polls suggest that, largely because of the American role in tsunami rescue and relief, Indonesia is now one of the few nations where a majority believes that American actions sometimes consider other nations' interests. Since that time, support for combating terrorism has doubled to 50 percent, as Indonesians focus on the dangers they face rather than on distaste for American policies.