Science, the driving force behind so much in the modern world, has rarely figured as a tool for forging and advancing relations among nations. But this has begun to change. Last June, President Obama laid out a blueprint for a “new beginning” with the Muslim-majority countries in a major speech at Cairo University. The President expressed optimism about creating strong, enduring ties rooted in common interests and mutual respect. In particular, he called for scientific and educational collaborations that could both cement those ties and serve as engines of social, economic and political progress.

The President’s initiative must be followed with an action plan, and the United States is in a good position to do so. Much of America’s global influence is based on its leadership in science and technology, and so the United States would do well to integrate the “soft” power of American science into its diplomacy.

My own experience as a product of both the East and the West has taught me how formidable the “soft” power and transformative cultural potential of science can be. As a young man growing up in Egypt, I did my undergraduate work in Alexandria, a city steeped in the history and culture of science and a cosmopolitan center in a Muslim-majority nation. Its population was ethnically and religiously diverse, with Muslims and Christian Copts, as well as Arabs, Greeks, Italians and others living peacefully side by side. Women made up nearly half of my class at the University of Alexandria; indeed, my senior research adviser was a woman. Religious Egyptians of all denominations enthusiastically embraced arts, literature, theater and music. I cannot recall a single incident of terrorism by religious fanatics. It was this soft power, these values and this culture, embedded in and supported by strong educational and media systems that, far more than weapons and political hegemony, constituted Egypt’s chief export to the rest of the Arab world and the source of its leadership throughout the region.