If you've ever read his 1990 Atlantic Magazine article, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," you'll understand why Bernard Lewis is pretty much the planet's #1 Mideast expert right now. It's still the best thing I've read on the subject. So when Terror Watch tells me that the Financial Times of England has lunch with Bernard Lewis, I definitely want to tune in.
"I ask him about the prospect of an American attack on Iraq, which he supports, and whether he thinks that a change of regime would lead to democracy and thereby set an example for the rest of the Middle East."Obviously, if Saddam is toppled tomorrow, he's not going to be replaced by a Scandinavian-style democracy," he says. "But of all the oil-producing countries, pre-Saddam Iraq made the best use of its oil revenues. It built a fine infrastructure, an excellent educational system. And I do believe that among the other Iraqi people there are those who are willing and able to initiate the development of democratic institutions."
Nice to hear. Them Tom Friedman dropped by, and Lewis' best lines were just around the corner:
"Imagine," says Lewis, "if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity. This is what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the west. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe in a marginal country."
As the article notes, the man has a new book out. I'll be buying it.
POSTSCRIPT:Iraqi defector Kanan Makiya used similar terms in his post 9/11 article: "Fighting Islam's Ku Klux Klan".
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