The Other Side
“When one of the Egyptian journalists at Feshawi’s insisted that we were out to “occupy Iraq,” I quoted to him a line from Colin Powell: America is as powerful as any empire in history, but when it has invaded other countries the only piece of land it has ever asked for was a tiny plot to bury its soldiers who would not be returning home. He actually smiled at that.
The moment reminded me of something the Arab columnist Rami Khouri liked to say, that Arabs for too long have seen the strength of America, but not the “goodness” of America. Partly that’s because their media willfully distorted what we did, and partly it’s because America has used its power out here more to defend oil and Israel than democracy. This war in Iraq was meant to bring the idealistic side of U.S. power into the Arab world.”