Atlantic writer and foreign affairs correspondent extraordinaire Robert Kaplan made quite the definitive statement today on his magazine's Web site.
Kaplan wrote that Christopher Hill, the career diplomat selected by Obama to be ambassador to Iraq, "is not the best man for this particular job." He went on to say that Obama's choice "may come back to haunt" his administration.
Marc Lynch has an interesting essay in The National about opinion polling in the Arab world (h/t Andrew Sullivan). As Lynch notes, most of our opinion polling in the Arab world is narcissistic -- how do you feel about American policies?
Opinion research that explores deeper cultural matters and local political issues will be far more useful than news-making surveys about anti-Americanism. Mark Tessler, who heads the Arab Barometer project - and is the leading American academic working on Arab public opinion - argues that efforts should be directed toward "explanation rather than descriptions" in order to assemble a complex picture about attitudes and their causes rather than bullet-point numbers.
Lynch is right that the narcissistic questions aren't helpful. But no amount of Arab world opinion polling will be helpful unless policymakers and journalists have a better sense of history.
