Sam Ser has a review of what looks to be a fascinating new book by Michael Oren, on the history of the US involvement with the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim world, going back to the Barbary Pirates.

Rand,
All reviews of this one seem to be top drawer.
Will be ordering from Amazon with what appears to be a mandatory companion piece.
David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East".
Mike Daley

http://www.cq.com/public/20070119_homeland.html

That failure has virtually crippled U.S. strategic intelligence — inside information on the personalities and plans of the often hostile U.S.-backed government, not just the multiplying insurgent groups and armed militias — in Iraq.

“No one is recruiting the future leaders of Iraq,” says the Pentagon counterterrorism official.

Tactical intelligence — the locations and types of enemy troops and weapons — is also suffering from a lack of access to the population and almost nonexistent language skills on the part of both CIA and military intelligence personnel, say these same sources, all of whom have decades of experience in clandestine operation

(So Simberg wants war with Iran, and we can't even get
basic Intel in Iraq, let alone the enemy order of battle)