Fouad Ajami, the controversial Lebanese-American author and academic who said the Arab world would "erupt in joy" when the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein, died Sunday aged 68 after a battle with cancer.
"As for the reaction of the Arab street, the Middle East expert professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation in Basra and Baghdad, the streets are sure to erupt in joy," Cheney said.
In his book, "The Foreigner's Gift," written three years after the Iraq War, Ajami also condemned the Arab world for harboring what he described as a "culture of terrorism" that provoked the U.S. into launching what he said was, in essence, a noble war.
Despite initial apprehension of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, Ajami became increasingly interventionist in the years after the first Gulf War.
Ajami had also criticized the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as misguided and aimed at intimidating the Palestinian people.
...