First, I would rather suggest that a commentator might be well advised to actually have a knowledge of my past opinions before "advising" me regarding justifications of my past opinions. I do not take kindly to stupid assumptions.

Second, I believe the phrase "pre-fooled" should be clarified. It is not my coinage at all and I can not vouch for it's originator, I don't know actually who coined it. Nevertheless, as I use the term the observation. Saying "aren't we all 'pre-fooled' by our prejudices and biases?" is meaningful only if we descend into post-modernist claptrap.

That is, however our existing understandings bound us, reality is knowable with critical analysis. That is whatever point of view and preconceptions one brings to any given subject, critical engagement should allow one to come to relatively objective understanding of a basic problem whatever the differences one might find on addressing the same. There is rarely, of course one right view or even set of solutions, there are ones, however that are clearly more tied to wishful thinking than reality.

Now generally I have adopted the phrase "pre-fooled" to refer to those who shut down or neglect their critical facilities in favor of simple belief based on political ideology and avoidance of cognitive dissonance. That those prone to letting wishful thinking dominate clearheaded analytical thinking have dominated right wing American political commentary on this issue is I suppose a function of ignorance, ideology, influence of Likoudist points of view, and finally a strange sort of willful ignorance that seems to infect the �red meat� American right when confronting non-European situations, which seems to arise from a misplaced belief that understanding other situations means excusing "error" or whatnot. A sad close mindedness relatively similar to the pious idiocies of the Left in regards to Capitalism, a blind spot.

Let me take the example of the Bush Administration's long and ridiculous campaign arguing all was well in Iraq, the bad news was simply 'liberal' media bias. This of course was baseless spin, agitprop. Anyone with substantive connections to Iraq was hearing as early as June that the situation was negative. As readers of my comments from that period can attest, I was warning the happy talk was not matched by the private talk by CPA officials, Iraqi contacts or Arab contacts I had doing business with Iraq - and this included normally pro-American folks. The response from the "pre-fooled" was denial and continued buy in to the khayali agitprop, whereas I warned that Bush Admin supporters would be better served by acknowledging the problem and agitating for change rather than stupidly swallowing the politically driven party line. [See Sam Stone & december on the SDMB.]

It was painfully clear as far back as June that CPA-IRAQ was painfully understaffed, under funded and making decisions more based on the ideologues wish list than pragmatic engagement with the possible. The khayali investment promotion was one of their most painfully sad efforts, given reality. Had the "pre-fooled" begun agitating then, as opposed to now when things are sliding almost inexorably towards failure - whether it is long term or immediate is the main question - then perhaps the belated reactive policy changes of November would have been engaged earlier and proactively.

Then there is this paragraph that I find almost presumptively offensive, but challenge is healthy:

When you formulate your new judgments, you would do well, in my opinion, to consider how much they are influenced by a desire to justify your prior ones. You say you opposed the war ahead of time, a fact which suggests that you then as now took a typical "Arabist" position - the same sort of possessive, lamingly pessimistic, effectively reactionary sympathy toward the Arab world as it has been that leads you to discount the fundamental good of deposing the Baath regime, to overlook the evidence that the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection is hardly a "new" problem, to respond favorably to the French Arabism reflected in that National Journal article, and to hold the Israelis - the "Sharonistas" - entirely responsible for the ills of Arafatistan. (I suggest you look into the backgrounds of the Shin Bet fellows you were praising.)

Well I can tell the writer has been reading the typical 'right wing' press commentary in the US. Charming. I suppose I first should note I rarely think of myself as an Arabist - I suppose that my fluent Arabic makes me so from some points of view - but I never took a degree in MENA studies or any of those typical academic training grounds that usually make one an "Arabist". Of course, I did learn the language, commandingly so I shall say immodestly, and by accident and interest have spent much of my professional life with the Arab - Islamic worlds.

I gather in the present American right wing political orthodoxy, dilettantism, lack of knowledge and indeed rank ignorance are preferable insofar as the ugly realities then do not get in the way of khayali flights of fancy.

Now, I have seen this peculiar smearing of Arabists before, among the pre-fooled largely, and it strikes as a kind of know-nothingism peculiarly American in ways, but most of all popular with ideologues who hate to have their messianic visions pulled down to reality. Personally, having rather some familiarity with analytical writing on the region by informed sources - a professional obligation - I find the ideologues� characterization of the same cartoonishly distorted. It is, in my opinion, a smear and a sort of advance excuse making for why persons with real expertise differ from the messianic dreamers. And given the low level of knowledge on the subject, it is a distortion easily sold to the pre-fooled and others who swallow such characterizations without any real knowledge of the substance behind them.

Let's take this:

You say you opposed the war ahead of time, a fact which suggests that you then as now took a typical "Arabist" position - the same sort of possessive, lamingly pessimistic, effectively reactionary sympathy toward the Arab world as it has been that leads you to discount the fundamental good of deposing the Baath regime, to overlook the evidence that the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection is hardly a "new" problem, to respond favorably to the French Arabism reflected in that National Journal article, and to hold the Israelis - the "Sharonistas" - entirely responsible for the ills of Arafatistan. (I suggest you look into the backgrounds of the Shin Bet fellows you were praising.)

First there is no motherfucking Baath-al-Qaeda connexion and if one believes that kind of khayali bullshit, well, one is a gullible motherfucking fool. Again, gullible fool of the same kind that lapped up the embarrassingly stupid lies and exaggerations in regards to NBC weapons - and likely now peddles equally embarrassingly transparent excuses of rather the same caliber as those embarrassing leftist fools in re trade and socialism. I have nothing but contempt for either set of self-deceptions.

As too the issue of, how was it put so charmingly naively? Ah yes, "the fundamental good of deposing the Baath regime" - well that's nice in a charmingly simplistic way. Noble sentiments and all that. It's also fucking stupid. There is only a fundamental good if the end result is positive. Rather like the overthrow of the Tsar and certain unpleasant consequences thereafter a bit back, the execution and consequences matter. Overthrowing the nasty Tsarist regime was a fundamental good however the fucked up execution rather made the worm turn.

Certainly the Saddam regime was nasty, but there are plenty nasty regimes around and what matters is the following: execution and follow through, for there is little worse at present than discrediting the development of a decent adaptation of Western liberalism by lame Potemkin facades for the consumption of the 'pre-fooled.' Secular liberalism has taken enough hits in the past in the region with the faux secularism of most regime, and near sighted idiocies in Western policy like Egypt and even support for Saddam himself, it does not need yet another exercise in self-deception and wishful thinking. Again, self-deception and wishful thinking. Few things are more fatal to getting by in this region than that.

Now the comment accuses me of seeking to justify past decisions - rather bizarely as if I was some diplo covering his ass. More precisely:

you would do well, in my opinion, to consider how much they are influenced by a desire to justify your prior ones. You say you opposed the war ahead of time, a fact which suggests that you then as now took a typical "Arabist" position - the same sort of possessive, lamingly pessimistic, effectively reactionary sympathy toward the Arab world...

I find this bizarre. First my engagement in the Arab world has been irremediably optimistic within the bounds of reason; I have worked on direct investment in the region. I have voted, as it were with that most valuable vote of all: putting my money, wealth where my mouth is - as an agent to be sure, but I take fiduciary duties seriously. I have a real honest sense of the potential here, and were it not enabling and positive, why the FUCK would I continue? Certainly working elsewhere would likely lead to higher remuneration.

I know from hard personal experience the challenges as well as the real potential wealth here in the region. As an investment analyst and market operator I know that it serves no one well to pretend the limitations are not what they are. Reactionary sympathy my motherfucking ass. Realism and actual knowledge, not the cartoonish distortions sold to the gullible and the irremediably ignorant, as well as those who go for facile ideological posturing.

Now, let me examine this:

to respond favorably to the French Arabism reflected in that National Journal article, and to hold the Israelis - the "Sharonistas" - entirely responsible for the ills of Arafatistan. (I suggest you look into the backgrounds of the Shin Bet fellows you were praising.).

Well, what can one say to such a claim? I suppose I would first say that the comment regarding French Arabism and the National Journal is nonsensical. The reality is that the French analysis of the situation was objectively far closer to reality than the official Anglo-American one, on all counts. One can whinge on like a child about this with odd little smears and snide comments or simply admit it, Bush and Blair were badly mistaken on every count. And that is being generous.

As for the second part, well, it is part distortion, part mere posturing, I do not recall laying all the ills of the PA on Israel's doorstep (i.e. entirely), however I do lay blame with the relevant parties, including the Sharonista party. The ills of Arafat are well-known and indeed frequently blown up out of proportion, whereas in American commentary, the ills of the Sharonista party are passed over virtually without comment. Future commentators may do me the favor of not stupidly distorting my comments, I may add pretending to lecture me on Shin Bet, etc. should be avoided as well. A precise comment is just that, on a precise issue.

Now, to conclude, my dear comment writer suggests some fairly confused views on change in this region. I rather think my views on how to effect real change are clear and that I have little interest in messianic views. One can bandy about scare words like "totalitarian" however reality requires change rooted in reality and the possible.

A further point in regards to critical analysis and thinking regarding potential policy - in contrast to magical thinking - one needs to have a realistic appraisal of the actual potential results. It is all well and good to blither on piously about democratization in the Arab world without a proper regard to the likely results in the short term and whether on can live with them, however this will likely lead to precisely the policy incoherence that has been painfully evident in Iraq. Real efforts at democratization will require living with regimes that are liklely to be less docile than the present ones - real democratization will initially produce Islamist results for reasons I have elaborated in the past.

To the extent that the American Conservative agitprop has a point regarding 'Arabist' negative views on democratization in the region - among State Department e.g. - it is because they have framed their policy recommendations in the context of what will really happen and what Washington will actually accept. This is opposed to the wishful, even magical thinking that the Neo-Cons have engaged in. I personaly prefer to work with the possible and the real than to engage in utopian fantasy that tends to fall flat and discredit an underlying concept.

The idea that "removing totalitarian governments" is in itself an answer is pure idiocy and the sort of naive nonsense that got the Neo Cons et al into this bloody mess in the first place. The Saddams et al of the region are not the source of the illness, they are symptoms - although as in any medical symptom, addressing extreme manifestations can sometimes - if the bloody doctors have a clue about the motherfucking underlying problems/illness - give space to address the real illness.

I may add that let us not mistake Capitalism for Democracy, nor visa versa. In an ideal set of circumstances, they go hand in hand, however neither one conditions the other. In this region, the prime issues that block other progress as fundamental socio-economic blockages. Given social instability, lack of state / national solidarity building identities, healthy or even fairly functional institutions, etc as general conditions that obtain in this region, pious nonsense in regards to democracy strikes me as misplaced. Tunisia is a rather more attractive model than any other Arab state, a healthy economy (if flawed, but there is no perfection in the word) undoped by oil, and a dictatorship of sorts. However one that has the sense to largely leave civil society to its own devices, and one that has largely enabled economic growth. Could it do better? Yes it could, but on the other hand there is no other Arab state in the region that has hit 5 percent real GDP growth for about a decade running without either massive aid, transfers or oil. Yet I have seen simple-minded fools mentioning it as a "totalitarian" regime to be addressed, I suppose due to Tunisian support for Arafat et al.

Clumsy, poorly conceived interventionism is not going to generate positive reaction nor change. Clumsy, moronic interventionism is going to, as in Iraq, provoke negative reaction, nationalist reaction and violence. This regime change idiocy is nothing but bloody minded wishfully thinking, it is belief wrapped up in marketing to be sold as a semblance of policy with murmurs of Realpolitik. Sadly it is nothing of the sort.

In my opinion, which I advance most unhumbly and unsentimentally, if one really wants to enable change in this region, and right fast, one has to bite the bullet and be realistic about what that change will result in, in the near term, and be willing to ride the tiger. That will take courage as any initial wave of liberalisation in politics will have unpleasant results � it will be Islamist, it will be to an extent unliberal and it will be anti-American. That is the reality � although let me add that Islamist and anti-American should not be taken as perfect synonyms for al-Qaeda � there are rather less nasty and rather less � disgusting manifestations, much as in say the 1930s there were Left and Right expressions that were less nasty than the Communists or the Fascists. The rather habitual confusion � fallacy of composition in general enabled by a general lack of knowledge of the region and fed by pure Islamophobia in some quarters (e.g. the rather overheated commentary on the medrasa).

The alternative is funding economic change while putting up with political illiberalism, for political liberalism and economic liberalisation will not go well together in this region under current conditions.

One means gritting one's teeth and taking security chances (which frankly are likely to be less than they appear on the surface - sympathy for real al-Qaeda is largely driven by frustration rather than deep seated ideological consanguinity). The other means putting up large funds to help fund economic liberalisation and work through the inevitably painful transition costs � and they will be terribly painful given the manner in which even the private sectors are organized. I am personally of the opinion providing investment money in real amounts that specifically targets the people not part of the oligarchic families is among the best manners to do this, although money will be lost. Better, however, in the private sector than feeding the vampire state's habits.

Regardless, any of these items requires real courage and funding. I doubt either is available. Rather we have a stumbling fool in Washington who will posture but not follow through.