Earlier today, Arab scholar Fouad Ajami spoke in very candid terms about the situation in Iraq, which he’s visited eight times. He is also one of the few Westerners to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The lunch, sponsored by the Hoover Institution, allowed members of the media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, and CBS to ask Ajami pretty much anything, and he did not disappoint. For non-Iraq experts like myself, it was interesting to learn that many members of the Mahdi Army were once part of Saddam’s Fedayeen and that there are actually four grand ayatollahs in Iraq, Sistani being “the first among equals.” He reminds us that the Shias came to Persia around the 16th century but that for nine centuries prior to that, the land was predominantly Sunni. As for Kurdistan, the Iraqi army rarely ventures there, as it is run by the Peshmerga. That is not to say, however, that a truly independent state in the north is inevitable. In fact, quite the contrary–the Kurds are dependent on Baghdad and its oil revenue. Ajami also points to the number of Kurds in high-ranking positions in the cabinet. (He calls the Biden plan a “nonstarter.”) Asked if and when U.S. forces will be able to leave Iraq, Ajami doesn’t think at all, paraphrasing Bill Clinton (when asked about Bosnia) in calling the American presence “indefinite but not infinite.” Even Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he mentions, now talk in terms beyond 2013. “Look around,” said Ajami, “the American security umbrella is everywhere.” He recalled an interview he gave for al-Arabiya where he at first egged on the reporter by saying “Iraq is part of the American Empire” and then added “just like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.” Ajami does not believe the United States will attack Iran–at least during the tenure of George W. Bush, because “we have our hands full in Iraq.” Nor does he see us making a deal. The Iranians themselves are not interested in a deal, considering “anti-Americanism is a pillar of the Iranian regime.” Part of the reason for America’s military presence has to do with “a certain cushioning of the Sunnis,” which he finds “inevitable and favorable” though it still is not the main purpose of the U.S. mission, which Ajami now sees as “an honorable outcome.” Ajami, who is the director of Middle East studies at SAIS, also spoke of the situation in Saudi Arabia, whose current regime, he is convinced, is there to stay. Saudi oil revenue was $54 billion in 1996. Last year it was $203 billion. And while the fertility rate among childbearing women in, say, the United States is 2.0, and in Spain 1.1, in Saudi Arabia, the number is 6.1. To learn more, check out Ajami’s most recent book, The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq (Free Press).
