Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Michael Oren author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy. The book’s topic (and subtitle) is America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present. When Jon Stewart asked if messed up relationships between the United States and the Middle East have a seed somewhere, Oren said that Americans somehow see the Middle East as being similar to us and we don’t recognize the region as a different culture. Somehow we think that with just a little tweaking they will be the same as us. Oren sited the observation of George McClellan who visited the Middle East in 1872 and wrote some articles. He wrote that as long as American insist on viewing this area as another America, as an extension of America, and don’t recognize this as a unique culture, a unique civilization, America will be fated to misunderstand this area.

Unfortunately time has proven McClellan to be quite insightful.