Peter Krupa

There’s an almost good story in the New York Times about an Iraqi sheik who’s had his house commandeered by the Americans. I say “almost” because among the heart-rending pathos of the sheik’s visit to his old mansion - the wistful remembrances, the garden smashed by Humvees, his “sandals scraping against the tiles he had laid” - one question is never raised: How in the world did this sheik get rich enough to own such a beautiful house?

In a simple policy discussion, that would be irrelevant, but this isn’t policy, this is pathos. Should I really feel sorry for a Sunni sheik who’s lost a mansion that was in all likelihood the fruit of his loyalty to a brutal fascist dictator?

Of course the sheik mourns Iraq’s good ol’ days. He wasn’t the one getting gassed.