True - the Brits had some true genius - Sandeman is amazing. Those who were in charge of Transjordan were also very skilled and shrewd at tribal administration.

Alas, many of those lessons are indeed long forgotten.

We Americans truly want to do the right thing, but we often listen to the wrong people when it comes to getting counsel on tribes.

There are many in academic circles who are discourged from studing tribalism - it's not PC. It's seen as culturally judgemental. So, for the last 50 years, glorious academia has fallen short in tribal studies. Yes, there are some fine works out there, but their scope is generally quite small.

Worse yet, our soft science student corps generally doesn't speak foreign languages, and especially middle eastern ones. So, the chinese wall between academia and middle eastern studies is built with the brick and mortar of our making.

Now, I am not a fan of all things British, but hats off to your brave forefathers (and to you too for raising the point!).

I agree, also, with Tom about HTS. But, good things are happening there - and they are getting much, much better. More on that to follow - the system is starting to emerge on the Iraq side of the house. I am very hopeful in that regard. I'm not too sure about the Afghan side of the house quite yet. The Afghan side works very hard, but the data sets available for them prevent predictive analysis at this point. Predictive capability (or at least educated guestimation) is being developed on the Iraq side of the house, of that I am quite confident.


V/r,

tribeguy