Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri Professor and Director of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Dream Palace of the Arabs, The Arab Predicament, and The Vanished Imam. Dr. Ajami’s latest book The Foreigner’s Gift (2006) is about the quest for freedom in Iraq after the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. He sits on the advisory board of the Wall Street Journal, where his essays appear regularly. He is also a regular political commentator on the Middle East for PBS and Fox News.