Horn of Africa historical (pre-2011): catch all thread

[Ken White]

Both Taarof and diplomacy have their own arcane and circuitous rules and conventions, and where they overlap all kinds of confusions are possible...but if they were assuming from the start that a bluff was on, it could easily have fallen into the category of seeing what they expected to see.

Misapprehensions on both sides due to both Diplomatese and Taarof are more than probable (which is why both create many problems...). No question, as I said, that Saddam was going in regardless. We'll likely never know what was in Glaspie's or Saddam's mind. Pretty much irrelevant in any event.

What I did learn in the ME is that little is as it seems, far more so than is the case in Asia and still more than in the west which is not blameless in that regard.