The much anticipated September report of General David Petraeus will refocus the national conversation on the level of our engagement in Iraq. The drawdown of American forces, whenever it comes, will bring with it developments we can't predict.

What we can anticipate is an even more robust debate about America's role in the world going forward, about restoring our reputation and reasserting American leadership. That may feel like the exclusive preserve of national security and foreign policy experts with little the rest of us can do to influence America's stature on the global stage. I believe just the opposite is the case.

An essential ingredient of American success in projecting its values and influence throughout the world, consistently overlooked, is America's ability to achieve its values in America. Unless we close the gap at home between promise and reality, our global influence will be compromised, dragged down by the same weight of hypocrisy that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib telegraphed around the world.

Income inequity continues to grow in the U.S. with the richest 1% of Americans controlling 19% of the national income, the largest share since Franklin Roosevelt's election. Infant mortality is climbing in many southern states with America ranking low on the list of industrialized countries. More young Americans die from gun violence on our own streets than do our soldiers in Iraq. More than 45 million Americans lack health insurance. And two years after a hurricane and human error combined to dislocate hundreds of thousands of our citizens on the Gulf Coast, we have yet to rebuild devastated neighborhoods or instill the confidence that we can.

Surely these are not the American values we intend to project or protect.

Our democratic foundations and fundamental freedoms still make America the world's great hope. But we would accelerate the spread of democracy and freedom if we were more effective in demonstrating their impact on the quality of life for all Americans. A robust internationalism is more likely to succeed if we are one nation, not separate, unequal societies. How do we convince the world we have the wisdom and capacity to shape events and improve lives beyond our borders if we don't demonstrate the wisdom and capacity to shape events and improve lives within our borders?

We tend to put foreign policy and domestic issues in neat and separate boxes, as reflected in the way government agencies are organizers, or newspapers, or the agendas of the numerous 2008 presidential candidate debates. But in today's interconnected world, such distinctions no longer exist, if they ever did.

Given America's low standing in much of the world today, we would be well advised to take steps here at home that might create demand for American influence, before taking the more expensive and perilous route of seeking to project it, a "pull strategy" rather than a "push strategy" to put it in classic marketing terms.

Effective internationalism in the 21st century requires more than trade agreements, foreign aid and increased military budgets. It will require public and private investments in our own schools, health care, cities, and efforts to achieve social justice. Most of all, it requires national leadership that embraces and communicates the connection between achieving social justice at home and our ability to advance democratic principles abroad.

19th century Rabbi Israel Salanter, who sought to restore morality and ethics to the center of spiritual life once said "When I was young, I wanted to change the world. I tried but the world did not change. So I concentrated on changing my town. But my town did not change. Then I turned to my family, but my family did not change. Then I realized: first I must change myself."

Our commitment to making the world better must begin by ensuring the world sees a better America. Changing ourselves demands the critical engagement of each and every one of us. In this sense the efforts of teachers, public health workers, social entrepreneurs and other community activists will not be on the sidelines of future international developments but at the center.