Obviously, we are all thinking of the Middle East, and Middle East authorities, today. One of the authorities of whom I am thinking is the late Richard Mitchell, viewed as the world’s foremost expert on the Egyptian Muslim Brothers. He was a professor of mine. If I remember correctly, he told the following story: “When Iran was succumbing to the Khomeinist revolution, I was in Cairo, fielding phone calls from the State Department. ‘Will it happen in Egypt?’ ‘No, no,’ I told them.” Anyway, that is my memory — perhaps faulty. I would like to question Professor Mitchell today.
By the way, Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Do you consider Cole an authority? I view him as the perfect embodiment of modern MESA thinking (if “thinking” is the word).