Washington ? By leaning on Turkey to be more of a help in Iraq, the United States inadvertently may have helped to nudge its Muslim NATO ally into the cross hairs of Islamic militants.

Many experts say the United States bears some blame for the circumstance in which Turkey now finds itself: targeted by al-Qaida and other groups bent on destabilizing the country.

The Bush administration was lackluster in its efforts at public diplomacy at the dawn of the anti-terrorism campaign, then expected the government in Ankara to withstand, on its own, pressure over the Iraq war from the two concepts, Islam and the West, that it straddles.

Now, in order to help Turkey fend off more terrorist attacks, the United States is going to have to lower its expectations with regard to Turkey’s help in Iraq and quickly wipe away any anti-Muslim perceptions about the battle against terror.

“There has to be some movement in the public diplomacy side of things,” said Andrew Hess, director of Turkish studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Diplomacy, he noted, is “much bigger than just discussions between the political and business elites of the countries involved. … It also involves convincing a large number of people — the public — that appropriate policies are being followed that serve everyone’s interest.”

That, in itself, will be an uphill struggle. A world attitudes survey conducted last summer by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 83 percent of Turkish people held a negative view of the United States. Only 8 percent expressed confidence in President Bush’s ability to handle world affairs.

Last year, Turkey held command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and, under U.S. pressure, offered this year to send troops in support of the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

Erdogan withdrew the Iraq offer after some members of the U.S.-installed Iraqi Governing Council objected, citing Iraqi sensitivities reflective of 400 years under Ottoman rule.

Hess suggested that Bush couple his pledge of support with a concerted effort to persuade European allies to grant EU membership, then make other diplomatic moves to advance the growth of democracy in the Middle East.

“We have to deal with a huge issue, which is that the massive Muslim population in the Middle Eastern-Southwest Asian region do not favor American foreign policy,” Hess said. “There’s been a public diplomacy failure there.”