Fouad Ajami var en av de beste og mest respekterte amerikanske forskere på Midtøsten. Han vil bli savnet av mange. Han etterlater seg noen av de viktigste bøker som er skrevet om Midtøstens politiske kultur og forklarer hvorfor det har vært så vanskelig for demokratiet å slå rot.

Michael Mandelbaum skriver:

He wrote several of the most important books of the past fifty years on the contemporary Middle East. The Arab Predicament (1981) describes the rise and fall of the kind of Arab nationalism that dominated the world in which he grew up, in a Shia family in Lebanon. The Dream Palace of the Arabs (1998) chronicles the fate of Arab intellectuals in a time of turbulence and disillusion. The Foreigner’s Gift (2006) concerns the American encounter with Iraq after 2003. It is one of the few books based on first-hand experience (he spent considerable time in Iraq) written by someone with the kind of access to Iraqi society available only to a fluent Arabic speaker and with a gift for gaining the confidence of those he met.

Academics such as Fouad and I hope that our books will both exert influence in our own eras and be read long afterward. Fouad’s major works fulfill both aspirations. Much discussed when they were published, they will also be consulted a hundred years from now by those wishing to understand the Arab world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

As well as being an author of books, a teacher, and a citizen of the academy, Fouad threw himself into the role of “public intellectual”—someone with scholarly credentials who writes for a wider audience on the issues of the day. Millions of people unacquainted with his books encountered him in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and on CBS News, CNN, andThe Charlie Rose Show. He became best known to them as a well-informed, stalwart, and ultimately disappointed champion of the American war in Iraq. Whatever the reckoning of his views under the eyes of eternity—and it is far too soon for a final verdict—he came to them honestly and expressed them fearlessly. He said what his experience, his reading, and his values caused him to believe, and he said what he believed without looking anxiously over his shoulder to gauge the sentiments of the crowd or the popular view of the moment.