I read a couple of Ajami’s books, and many of his essays in The Wall Street Journal. He was a man of a different era, the era when Arabs were blinded by mere delusional anti-Zionism rather than delusional Islamism. He was no blind supporter of Israel, but no stubborn rejectionist either. I grew skeptical of his belief in the ability of American blood and treasure to change the many and manifest ills of Arabia, but he diagnosed them very thoroughly, insightfully, and while pulling no punches. He also wrote beautiful English, far better than most native-speaker intellectuals.
Glad to see that Ajami never became the anti-American, anti-Israel Marxist that Richard Falk became (or always was). He was an honorable man among the many false scholars of Princeton and American academia in general.
Wow the man passed! Amazing study in evolutionary thinking. Pragmatic and recognizing the inevitability of events. I read somewhere that when he understood the richness and depth of Israel and its people, and what they have done with the land, he wept for the arab people and what could have been. A magnificent gift squandered by the smallness of the arab mind. He felt the same way on the liberation of Iraq from Saddam by the US. Adjami you will be missed.