Windows on the communal conflicts in Iraq

Kurdish Aspect / The New York Times ^ | 7/28/06 | Noah Feldman

[Valin]

The Foreigner's Gift. The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. By Fouad Ajami.

Born to a Shiite family in Lebanon, Ajami has written several important books about Middle Eastern political culture, including a classic on the Lebanese Shiites, "The Vanished Imam." He supported the removal of Saddam Hussein, and his extraordinary level of access in Washington is reflected in "The Foreigner's Gift," which recounts many conversations he had in Iraq while shadowing American officials or traveling with close American allies like Chalabi

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For Ajami, the foreigner's gift is, in the first instance, the removal of dictatorial rule and the opportunity for self- government. But Iraqi Sunnis have refused to accept their transformation from rulers of the country to a minority within a democracy. The insurgency was born of this denial, and has been augmented and transformed by an infusion of support from elsewhere in the Sunni world. This support, according to Ajami, comes not just from the jihadis crossing borders but from the mainstream (Sunni) Arab news media, which have depicted the United States as an Israel-like occupier rather than as a force liberating Shiites from Sunni oppression and all Iraqis from Saddam's tyranny.

Meanwhile, Ajami suggests, Shiite leaders have begun fitfully to come to terms with what it means to exercise secular political power in the name of a group that is a religious denomination. He describes a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and is impressed by the leader's light touch when it comes to politics.

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Ajami's American sensibilities come through most powerfully in his discussions of the American soldiers he meets in Iraq, from generals to anonymous enlisted men. Ajami honors and respects their dedication, their optimism and their genuine desire to improve Iraq......

[Valin]

The Foreigner's Gift. The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. By Fouad Ajami. 378 pages. $26. Free Press.

IMO A MUST read. One of the best books I;ve read in quite a while on Iraq in particular and the Arab wotrld in general. Do yourself a BIG favor