What Every American Should Know About the Middle East
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Daniel Miessler:
Most in the United States don’t know much about the Middle East or the people that live there. This lack of knowledge hurts our ability to understand world events and, consequently, our ability to hold intelligent opinions about those events.Read the whole thing.For example, frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and most think the words “Arab” and “Muslim” are pretty much interchangeable. They aren’t. So here’s a very brief primer aimed at raising the level of knowledge about the region to an absolute minimum.
HT: Joe Carter
posted by JT at Tuesday, July 01, 2008
8 Comments:
"frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims"
Haha, like John McCain for example. Remember his "Iran is training Al Qaeda" gaffe that Joe Lieberman had to correct him on in front of everybody a few months back?
Oh, and remember Barack Obama's "recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" gaffe at the AIPAC conference?
No, of course not. Nobody remembers those. People choose to focus on flag pins and bitterness when it comes to Obama and old age and off-the-cuff statements about the economy when it comes to McCain.
In other words the two first issues are important and actually have an effect on our foreign policy. The second ones are trivial. Sadly, the media tends to focus on the latter. They have become a celebrity gawker-type show. They, and their viewers (whether Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC) have stooped to such an uneducated low level of political discourse that we might as well get our news from Stephen Colbert, or even TMZ at this point.
Sorry to rant.
I remember the McCain "gaffe." It was "the media" who pointed this out (AP, NYT, etc).
What's even more interesting is that the 9/11 commission report actually concluded that there is a long-standing relationship between al Qaeda and Hezbollah (who are Sunni), including operations cooperation.
JT
The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr is an excellent entry-level book on this subject.
Yeah, I guess McCain forgot to read the 9/11 commission report. I doubt Obama read it either. Most politicians know they are right and have a "vision" so they don't need to bother with those silly little things called facts.
Alex, the point of my citation of the Report is to suggest that McCain's comment was actually plausible, and to refute your notion that he doesn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shia's.
JT
JT,
Thanks for posting this. I've done a lot of reading and have been shocked at the history of the Middle East and the roles that the US played in the mid-20th century and how that has created the situation we are in. It drives me crazy when people talk about the backward Muslims that just like to kill Americas and how we need to kill all of them.
IT IS SO MUCH MORE COMPLEX!!
in that summary, he relied heavily on Wikipedia, which is notoriously riddled with error. Does anyone have a good suggestion for reputable middle east history book?
M.R.H.,
I thoroughly enjoyed "All the Shah's Men" by Kinzer. It's primarily about Iran in the 1950s, but gives some idea of the period.
"The Looming Tower" by Wright is excellent in its biography of the rise of al Qeada and extremism and why.
I liked "America's Secret War" by Friedman, too. It gives much deeper context to the last decade and why the Bush Admin did what they did.
The TV and radio people never come close to understanding or explaining the complexities contained in these books.
Before anyone attacks any of these authors, make sure to read it yourself and critique it then.
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