Tom Friedman is an old Middle East hand, to say the least, and my four trips to the area are nothing compared to his, but there is something about his New York Times oped this morning that disturbs me. It isn’t just the extreme banality. He speaks of the “Humiliation Factor” (for the Islamic world principally) as if this might be news to us or to President Bush. He even goes so far as to say: “The single most under appreciated force in international relations is humiliation.”

Oh, please! We’ve heard about nothing more than the Humiliation Factor for the better part of two decades. Furthermore, whatever you think about the administration policy in Iraq, they have made great efforts (difficult and sometimes impossible as the task may be and more than any other occupying power that I can think of in history) to take into consideration local values and mores; Bush is always at pains to say we are not at war with Islam, etc., etc. Paul Wolfowitz, to pick just one name, but a key one in the administration, goes and solicits Iraqi citizen views with a dogged determination unheard of in an American official and Friedman bloody well knows this. Sure they make mistakes, but who wouldn't?[...]