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SteveMetz
07-06-2007, 02:57 PM
Another piercing quotation from Fouad Ajami's magisterial book The Foreigner's Gift:

"For America, the surprise was that it had expected to sweep into Iraq and encounter Iraqis seared by the dictator's brutalities and glad for their deliverance. Those it found, but Americans encountered Arabs in Iraq, people given to all those defects that had frustrated American power and intentions in Egypt, in Arabia, and among the Palestinians. That journey into the "heart of the Middle East," as President Bush described the expedition into Iraq time and again, turned out to be a venture into all the malignancies of Arab politics. Despotism, sectarianism, antimodernism, willful refusal to name things for what they are: they are in plentiful supply in Iraq. A great power that had had its fill with the anti-Americanism and unreason of the Arabs suddenly found itself yet again in the thicket of that Arab mix of victimology and wrath..."

(p. 165)

Tom Odom
07-06-2007, 03:17 PM
Another piercing quotation from Fouad Ajami's magisterial book The Foreigner's Gift:

"For America, the surprise was that it had expected to sweep into Iraq and encounter Iraqis seared by the dictator's brutalities and glad for their deliverance. Those it found, but Americans encountered Arabs in Iraq, people given to all those defects that had frustrated American power and intentions in Egypt, in Arabia, and among the Palestinians. That journey into the "heart of the Middle East," as President Bush described the expedition into Iraq time and again, turned out to be a venture into all the malignancies of Arab politics. Despotism, sectarianism, antimodernism, willful refusal to name things for what they are: they are in plentiful supply in Iraq. A great power that had had its fill with the anti-Americanism and unreason of the Arabs suddenly found itself yet again in the thicket of that Arab mix of victimology and wrath..."(p. 165)



Steve

What I have trouble with Ajami is that he writes as if he was not one of those who said the US could "sweep into Iraq and encounter Iraqis seared by the dictator's brutalities and glad for their deliverance." Now he engages in this sort of vitriolic writing? Any one who had spent more than a day in the Middle East should have known better--yeah I know, I am being vitriolic in my own way. But Ajami should have known better unless he was merely speaking to what his auidience wanted to hear at the time and again now. All of this goes with the neocon defense of you did not do want we wanted they way we wanted you to..

Best

Tom

SteveMetz
07-06-2007, 03:22 PM
Steve

What I have trouble with Ajami is that he writes as if he was not one of those who said the US could "sweep into Iraq and encounter Iraqis seared by the dictator's brutalities and glad for their deliverance." Now he engages in this sort of vitriolic writing? Any one who had spent more than a day in the Middle East should have known better--yeah I know, I am being vitriolic in my own way. But Ajami should have known better unless he was merely speaking to what his auidience wanted to hear at the time and again now. All of this goes with the neocon defense of you did not do want we wanted they way we wanted you to..

Best

Tom


Good point. I hadn't thought about that. Kind of like Oliver North whining about lying by government officials.

tequila
07-06-2007, 03:50 PM
My favorite Fouad Ajami quote of late is when he compared I. Lewis Libby in the wake of his perjury conviction to a fallen soldier (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010185)on the battlefield. The best evidence of Prof. Ajami's genuine area of expertise.