Monday, September 16, 2002

Bernard Lewis had it right



This from Best of the Web:

In the Jerusalem Post, Iranian writer Amir Taheri explains the Arab change of heart:

Over the past few weeks, Arab opposition to military action against Saddam Hussein has crumbled. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the Arabs have now concluded that Washington is no longer bluffing and that President George W Bush is determined to topple Saddam Hussein.

Arab leaders who have read the Siasatnameh, the "Book of Politics" by the 10th century scholar and statesman Nizam al-Mulk, remember his celebrated dictum: "A man who sides with a loser is not fit for political office."



Bernard Lewis pointed this out a few days after 9/11/01, maintaining that Bush was putting too much emphasis on coalition building. He said that Arabs respect resolve and that rather than asking, we should just tell the Saudis what we were going to do and what we expected from them. This has been confirmed by the results of our attack on the Taliban, and is now being verified once again.

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