More on Iraq

I didn't really go into full detail with my Iraqi lunch/dinner last post. Besides being a huge amount of food, it was also a really interesting look into how American foreign policy reverberates around the Arab world.

In the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, this family of 5 packed a car, left all their furniture and things in Baghdad, and hit the road. The father, D, was showing me every table and rug and explaining how he had to furnish the apartment from nothing. The mother, Z, says Amman, compared to Baghdad, is nothing. She misses the beauty and the history of Baghdad, which has been around for thousands of years as a seat of culture, as opposed to Amman, which only became a big deal this century when all the other major cities of the region were drawn into other countries by the Europeans.

When we started talking regional politics, Z said she liked Bush because he says what he means. I.e., he said he would invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and he did. She said that is not a skill set that Arab politicians have. I responded that even if he means what he says, he says stupid things, but she was not convinced.

On a personal level, while D has a job training pilots, and the kids have made Jordanian friends in school and in the neighborhood, Z has no Jordanian friends because she cannot identify with them. So besides her Iraqi friends, Z doesn't really have anyone to talk to and stays in the house and cooks all day.