Unless you have a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies -- and maybe even if you do -- you will learn from Dr. Cole's book.

Essentially, Cole visits each area of Muslim-Western conflict and explains (1) how we, as Americans, probably see it and (2) why and how we are wrong.

And, the sad truth it, that rubric works. I know considerably less about the Muslim world than I think I do. And most of what I do "know" is based on propaganda. In short, we Americans view the Muslim world entirely from our own point of view. Every nation, government, insurgency or movement within Islam is appraised based on its respective attitude toward America (and Israel).

Are they with us or against us? Even liberals (like myself) tend to view the Muslim world that way. And, surprise of surprises, that approach produces distortions.

Think of the hard-headed types who went gaga over Qadaffi because he promised to drop his (probably nonexistent or rudimentary) weapons program and desist from backing anti-American terrorists. As soon as he did that, we all loved him and to hell with all the innocent Americans he killed on Pan Am 103.

Anyway, reading Cole made me a bit more sympathetic to John McCain who seems never to understand who the good guys are in Iraq. It's not simple. The problem is trying to get a fix on the Muslim world by using the "do they like Yanks" litmus test and then making it sound respectable by adorning it with "well, they are Shiites, after all" or "what do you expect from Wahabbis?"

We just don't get it. But Cole does. And the book is really helping me get it too.

Tomorrow I'll write about his challenge to the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis. No, it wasn't just the lobby that got us into Iraq. And no it wasn't just the oil. It was both and it took Dick Cheney to bring these two forces together.