World View/Paul Gillespie: 'An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them." So said Werner Heisenberg, the German mathematical physicist.
It is worth recalling in an eventful week for Iraq which began with the publication of an unprecedented criticism of British and United States policy by 52 former British ambassadors, many of them experts on the Middle East. It has had a substantial impact.
This is no small matter. A large foreign service such as Britain's can afford to specialise in the history, culture, language and politics of such regions.
Policy has, as a result, a depth and range it would otherwise lack. Britain's imperial past gives it an insight on the region, compared to the US. In 2001, for example, only four Americans graduated in Arabic. The vast majority of US personnel in Iraq do not speak its language.
The Middle East experts in the FCO are known as the "camel corps". This open letter is signed by many of its former members and presumably reflects views widely held by currently serving diplomats. Among the signatories is Sir David Blatherwick, a former ambassador in Ireland and Egypt and joint chair of the British-Irish cultural and political liaison organisation, Encounter.
They criticise the policies pursued by Tony Blair and George Bush in Iraq and on the Arab-Israel conflict. The "road-map" on Israel-Palestine set up last year by the US, EU, Russia and the UN was based on well-understood principles but has "waited in vain" for American leadership to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence.
But "worse was to come" with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and Bush of "new policies, which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood".
Blair's endorsement of the plans to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza and undertakings about Israeli West Bank settlements is an abandonment of principles established over four decades at a time when, "rightly or wrongly, we are portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq".
There was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement there, they say; its occupation by the coalition has led to serious and stubborn resistance, as predicted by "all those with experience of the area". Virtually all independent specialists say that, "however much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the coalition is naïve". The authority must be given to the UN and the Iraqis themselves.
Much of this criticism is conventional and well-known, which is one of the reasons it is rejected by Bush's supporters. The oped page of the Wall Street Journal has fun with the open letter in an editorial entitled "The Seven Pillars of Chutzpah".
The standard definition of chutzpah is of a man who, having killed his parents, asks the judge for leniency because he's an orphan. These diplomats "represent the decades-old Arabist foreign policy tradition that views the Arab world in decidedly romantic terms. The policies that resulted pandered to extreme Arab demands, thus ensuring that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was never solved". It allowed despots like Saddam to threaten regional and international security and played down the dangers of radical Islam. The WSJ recommends the letter writers should "do everyone a favour and stay where they are - in retirement".
Unfortunately for them, the mess in Iraq has got worse this week and it now looks as if Sharon could lose the Likud party referendum Bush's undertakings were designed to help him win. The administration is turning to the UN and former Baathists to help them out, along some of the lines suggested by the former diplomats. The question at issue now is whether such gestures will be enough to make a real difference.
Another expert on Iraq, Toby Dodge, author of a recent book on the country's history and politics, gave evidence last week to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Writing in the London Independent about it, he says there is a risk of creating a "failed state at the heart of the Middle East" and that Washington has to recognise how close Iraq is to anarchy.
"The only answer is to internationalise totally the creation of governing institutions and democratic structures. This would not mean a partial or token role for the UN. Instead, it would involve bringing the whole occupation and state-building under UN management." While the UN is certainly not a magic wand or a cure-all, it is the best way to involve Iraqis in reconstruction.
The electoral importance of resisting expertise for the Bush administration was underlined this week in a remarkable US opinion poll carried out by the PIPA organisation (www.pipa.org). It shows a close association between mistaken beliefs about Iraq and propensity to vote for Bush.
Fifty-seven per cent of Americans still believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda, and 60 per cent that it had weapons of mass destruction or a major programme to develop them. Eighty-two per cent believe experts agree with these beliefs or are evenly divided about them, and 59 per cent are unaware that world opinion is opposed to the war.
These mistaken beliefs are traced back to speeches by Bush and Cheney and are a key factor in their support base - despite the revelations by experts such as Richard Clarke and David Kay that they are not true. As Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser, puts it: the most important divide in the presidential campaign is between fact and fiction, while "the idea of proof has shifted from fact to fervour".