If there is one book to read on Iraq it must be Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). In 1283 pages, he explains Iraq to you. I was lucky to have studied under the late Batatu at the American University of Beirut, and later followed him to Georgetown. This is what he wrote about the Mosul Revolt of 1959 (this what the American occupiers may unleash): “For four days and four nights Kurds and Yezidis stood against Arabs; Assyrian and Aramean Christians against Arab Moslems; the Arab tribe of Albu Mutaiwit against the Arab tribe of Shammar; the Kurdish tribe of Al-Gargariyyah against Arab Albu Mutaiwit; the peasants of the Mosul country against their landlords; the soldiers of the Fifth Brigade against their officers; the periphery of the city of Mosul against its center; the plebeians of the Arab quarters of al-Makkawi and Wadi Hajar against the aristocrats of the Arab quarter of Ad-Dawwasah; and within the quarter of Bab al-Baid, the family of Rajabu against its traditional rivals, the Aghawat” (p. 866). But Bush understands all that, and the country is reading instead Bernard Lewis. I just finished his last two books: What Went Wrong? And the Crisis of Islam, and he repeats the same things in both books and if you read the article “Return (from vacation?) of Islam” from the late seventies, you do not need to read anything else by him. He has no new ideas; his hostility to Arabs and Muslims has remained constant.

Kanan Makiya is a charlatan and a fraud who, for some reason—it could be his love for Israel and his acceptance of an honorary doctorate from an Israeli university, although he dropped out of MIT, is a darling to the liberal and conservative US media. I saw him on Charlie Rose two weeks ago talking about his work: while he holds a chair in Islamic studies at Brandeis University (although he has never studied Islamic or Middle East studies, but for Brandeis qualifications are ideology and love for Israel, and not such silly matters as degrees and specialization, he has been in Iraq doing work for the puppet council regarding the future Iraqi constitution. The committee (hand-picked by the Americans) has the task of going around the country and asking people what they think. This Makiya told his easily impressed host Charlie Rose, who finds it difficult to shut up (he interviewed me once when he was working for CBS and was quite ill-prepared and asked me what to ask his next guest, the Israeli ambassador), and told him the people from around the country are welcoming this committee and discussing the matters of constitutional formation. That was flat out lie. No such things are taking place. Here what the Economist of September 27th says: ““GO AWAY,” bawled a rabble of men, rattling sabres and cudgels at an Iraqi delegation sent to the southern city of Hilla for talks on how to draw up the country's constitution. “We have nothing left to discuss.” This summer, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa declaring that only an elected assembly has the legitimacy to draw up a constitution. And that, for many of Iraq's 15m Shias, is that.” That settles it for me.