[Steel Wolf]

At an Iraqi university, a team is translating the great works of democracy into Arabic.

This is 2004 and no Arab has done this yet?

Probably not. Fewer books are translated into Arabic than in any other major langugae. As I recall, the ratio isn't even close. Some Arabic speaking cohorts of mine report that bookstores in the Middle East are basically vendors for the Quran and Islamic related works.

This has been the trend for centuries. There are very, very few foriegn books available in the Middle East.

[epluribus_2]

it's been my experience that few arabic speakers learn to read the language because the written language is different than the spoken (like spanish and latin) and that only male, islamists, or politicians ever use literary written arabic. And that SEVERELY limits the subject matter.