“… in recent years his ideas have been based less and less on solid research, and directed more and more towards providing a scholarly veneer for the Bush administration’s Middle East policies. His track record in that area is pretty bad. He was one of the key figures promoting the invasion of Iraq and, presumably drawing on his knowledge of Turkey, he argued that his chum Ahmad Chalabi, the convicted fraudster, could become an Iraqi version of Ataturk. More recently, he has had some batty thoughts about an Islamic takeover of Europe by the end of the century – a prediction that is now ‘widely accepted’ according to at least one fear-mongering American commentator.”
Brian Whitaker celebrates the 90th birthday of Bernard Lewis, the man who discovered the “clash of civilisations”.