What Am I Reading?

I am currently reading "The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq," by Fouad Ajami.

I last wrote about Ajami on October 11, 2006. Here is that post in its entirety:

I first noticed Fouad Ajami during the Iranian Revolution. (Wikipedia also carries an extensive article on Ajami). He was a mainstay on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather at the time.

Ajami is eloquent, sharp, incisive and learned. His opinion cannot be ignored, but lately I have come to have my doubts about the Lebanese-born American university professor. He is a staunch supporter of the Bush presidency and its hawkish agenda. To get a taste of his lyrical writing style read his tribute to Bernard Lewis in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal.

Now I come upon an article on the Foreign Affairs web-site entitled, "The Falseness of Anti-Americanism." You may have to register to view this article for free or you can go to the"wired new york" web-site for a copy of the same article.

This article highlights for me the ridiculous lengths to which Ajami seems to go to interpret almost all American actions as benign. Is it any wonder that he is the darling of the Bush administration. "Condoleezza Rice has been known to summon him to the White House for advice." "(Wikipedia)"

Like him or not I just can't help reading his stuff. Judge for yourself.

That was then. Now: I simply cannot continue reading The Foreigner's Gift. Does he know his subject? Absolutely. Does he write well? No...he writes lyrically. But why is he so blinded by the dust kicked up by the only super power?

Read a review of The Foreigner's Gift here. The review is by R. Stephen Humphreys, a professor of Middle Eastern history and Islamic studies at the University of California. An excerpt from that review follows below:

Ajami's treatment of anti-Americanism is strikingly dismissive; he sees it as a kind of pathology, the perverse irrationalism of a perverse people who cannot recognize that the foreigner has offered a real gift. Anti-Americanism is a complex phenomenon, but it does not rise out of nothing, and it surely merits a more searching treatment than it receives here.

'Nuff said.