Edward Said, the American scholar, who died last week, is often regarded as the man who invented the "blame-it-on-the-west" theory. His "Orientalism", a polemical pamphlet masquerading as historical analysis, presented the study of the Muslim world by European scholars as a "colonialist plot". The premise of the polemic is simple: the West is an "imperialist" monster out to dominate the world, devour its resources, impoverish other nations, and plunge mankind into perpetual war. The conclusion is equally simple: the only relationship possible between "the West" and "the rest" is one of perpetual conflict. Almost two decades before Said, the Iranian...