Juan Cole...

...always seems to get it right.

As for me, I'm just trying to understand our world. If the understanding I attain is found useful by others, I am gratified, and I think understanding is a prerequisite for making good policy. I fear a lot of policy has been being made by people who are simply uninterested in understanding, and who have all sorts of ulterior motives for trying to shove a policy down the world's throat regardless of the realities of the situation. That is how we got the Iraq debacle.

Real understanding requires that an analyst be unafraid to go wherever the evidence leads, be unafraid to step on toes or offend. Risking being perceived as "shrill" on occasion, in other words, is essential to the enterprise.

The other thing I insist on is trying to build a global civil society. Civil society means we have to be willing to dialogue with others, with whom we disagree. Professional diplomats know this, and do it all the time, otherwise they would never accomplish anything (the rest of the world doesn't look very much like the U.S. politically). Likewise, in the Senate, cooperation and friendship across party lines has until recently been quite common, though perhaps the situation is worse now that ever before.