15 rules for understanding the Middle East
January 10th, 2007
In anticipation of the president’s address to the nation about charting a new course in Iraq, I thought that there may be no better time to post a piece I found in the Albany Times Union last December, “15 rules for understanding the Middle East”
15 rules for understanding the Middle East
First published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
From the Times Union from Albany, New York
For a long time, I let my hopes for a decent outcome in Iraq triumph over what I had learned reporting from Lebanon during its civil war. Those hopes vanished last summer. So, I'd like to offer President Bush my updated rules of Middle East reporting, which also apply to diplomacy, in hopes they'll help him figure out what to do next in Iraq.
Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn't count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.
Rule 2: Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: "Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" If you answer yes, you can't go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany -- not Iraq.
Read the rest of the piece here.
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