Footnote to the post titled “What Went Wrong?”

In Istanbul, I have an Afghan friend who inherited what is essentially a billion-dollar business and fortune from his father. He sells Afghan and Persian antiques and rugs. During dinner one night while I was in Istanbul two years ago, he told me that more than sixty percent of the people who buy his antiques and rugs are American. His goal now is to open an outlet in America. His story is an example of how Western hegemony and Eastern expansion can in fact be reconciled in a civilized and peaceful manner. Another Afghan billionaire, Mir Wais Azizi, who is now a real estate mogul, plans to build one of the world’s largest skyscrapers in America. Likewise, when I assess the statistics that are generated for this blog, I see that about sixty to seventy percent of my readers are American. It follows that America is a magnet for foreign culture and commerce, and with growing cultural diversity and integration as a result of globalization and technology, neocons can essentially bite the dust from this point forward.