President Obama's Cairo address to the Muslim world is still reverberating in the hearts of radical elements in America. They expected Mr Obama to act aggressively to the human rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran to crush violent demonstrations following presidential elections which the demonstrating mobs called "rigged and stolen". The government of Iran, indeed reacted very harshly to suppress the agitation led by the defeated candidate Mir Mousavi. The brutal murder of a 26-year old girl, Neda Soltan, on the streets of Tehran in front of the cameras became a symbol of resistance. This was condemned worldwide. President Obama, however, reacted rather softly to the Iranian mayhem calling it Iran's internal affair. This enraged Republican Senator John McCain, who sharply criticised Mr Obama's lame reaction. He said: "It should be politically difficult for President Obama to continue sitting on the fence." A few days later, although President Obama condemned the beating and imprisonment of the Iranian demonstrators as outrageous, but stopped short of criticising the so-called stealing of elections by the ruling party which brought out millions of people on the streets of Tehran. In short, he did not call the elections "rigged". He gave the indication that no amount of blood that the regime had shed will dissuade him from negotiations with the Iranian government which would lead to peace in the Middle East. Unlike Mr Bush, President Obama is not willing to describe Iran as an Axis of Evil nation. He considers this a rash and dangerous reaction to a delicate issue which might further exacerbate the Middle East situation like the Iraq war let loose by Mr Bush has done. This brings us to the fate of about 10 million American Muslims of Middle Easter and South Asian heritage. Compared to annual US population growth of 0.9 percent, American Muslims are growing at a much higher rate of 6.2 percent, driven by immigrants sponsoring their families and higher birth rates. Within the Muslim population, there are four ethnic groups: South Asians (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), Arabs (Middle East and North Africa), African Americans and others. In all there are about 10 million Muslims living as US nationals. In addition to the population growth, several other factors make American Muslims an attractive entity. First, they are well educated, with 62 percent having completed a four-year college education as compared for the 42 percent of the total US population. Second, they have a higher average income, with $53,000 per household compared to $42,000 for the US as a whole. Third they are younger: 66 percent of American Muslims are under the age of 40, compared to only 40 percent for the total US population. Lastly they have larger than average families, with 3.6 people compared to 2.7 for the total population. American Muslims are a growing, well-educated and effluent community. In the aftermath of 9/11 the Muslim population in America is living under suspicion of the white majority, and Islam as a religion has been associated with violence and terrorism. There is no doubt that the image of Islam has been tarnished by the activities of a tiny minority in clear violation of the Quranic verse which says that Muslims should not differentiate between religions, sent down by God to reform humanity. This message is not reaching forcefully to the non-Muslim Americans mainly due to a ferocious, anti-Islam propaganda by a section of the US media. Muslims desperately needed a media outlet to counter this propaganda. In view of this a group of white Americans and American Muslims from Pakistan launched a TV channel, Bridges, three months after the 9/11 attacks to spread the message of Islam and the tolerant cultures of a billion Muslims spread from Morocco to Indonesia. The channel is on the air since 2007. Currently, the company is adding roughly 90,000 new home subscriptions per month, and expects to be available to 3.7 million homes by the year's end. The writer is former director news, PTV E-mail to burhanhasan@hotmail.com