Friday, November 12, 2004

Misreading Islam

"America's misreading of the Arab world – and our current misadventure in Iraq – may have really begun in 1950."

"There in Istanbul, in the heart of what once was a Muslim empire, a Western-style democracy was being born.

The hero of this grand transformation was Kemal Ataturk. A generation before Lewis's visit to Turkey, Ataturk (the last name, which he adopted, means "father of all Turks"), had seized control of the dying Ottoman Sultanate."

"Iraq, of course, does not seem to be heading in that direction."


Misreading Islam

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