Angry Arab on Fall of the State Department Arabists

As'ad AbuKhalil, the Angry Arab, is angry again. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman wrote a letter to The New York Times recently, taking exception to a favorable article about the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar (which has been the main Wikileaks outlet in Arabic), and praising instead the murdered Editor of al-Nahar. AbuKhalil offers a lengthy post which is essentially a critique of Feltman (though al-Nahar gets the treatment, too) and a yearning for the days of the Arabists at State, whose eclipse he dates to the Clinton Administration. While he acknowledges the State Department Arabists were oftn, in his view, too timid, and also often ignored, he has kind things to say about the late Richard Parker, as well as Richard Murphy and William Quandt. It's true that few of our most senior diplomats today have their rich knowledge of the region.

I don't agree with him 100%, but he has some useful points. He calls Robert Pelletreau the last Assistant Secretary for Near East who was an Arabist, which may be strictly accurate but may be misleading. It's also misleading to suggest that every policy figure in the Clinton Administration was a strong supporter of Israel. Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross are the usual targets here, but more balanced views were heard from Assistant Secretaries Ned Walker and Bill Burns, not to mention Aaron David Miller, who is too often assumed by critics to be an echo of Dennis Ross, which Miller's writings since leaving government service ought to put to rest.

But then, AbuKhalil has long enjoyed the role of provocateur, and I think he has succeeded in provoking some discussions here. It's worth a read. And I say that as someone who has never worked for the State Department, but who has never run away from the title of "Arabist."