Here’s a quick round-up of representative emails. I’ve got to get back to real work. Thanks for all the kind words etc.

The shrillness of [Cole’s] claim to have superior expertise arises from the Iraqi election. THOSE WHO KNOW ABOUT SUCH THINGS all said it would be a disaster. Events proved otherwise, and the people have quite rightly
devalued the opinions of these experts. They can speak Arabic and they’ve
read all the right books. But they were wrong on the big question.

And:

Hi Jonah,
Let me pile on briefly. Glad to hear you got smacked down by Juan Cole. I must admit however that it was merely confirmation of what most everyone outside of your bubble on the pseudo-right already knew. At any rate- just delicious.

And:

It is my opinion that you have the more sound academic footing here. The “This thing was more like a referendum than an election.” comment is what gave it away. The opportunity to construct a democracy with liberty and justice for all is an option that was never included in the 1997 Iranian election. It was surely included in the options in the recent Iraqi election! Keep hammering away! Pretty soon Cole will be denigrated into shouting NeoCon! and posting your name to http://www.sourcewatch.org.
Have a good superbowl sunday

And the kicker:

Mr. Goldberg,
As I believe Greg Djerejian has pointed out on occasion, the problem with Cole is that whatever expertise the man may have is entirely swept up in his monomaniacal hatred of the Bush administration and its policies. It is precisely these types of sentiments that leads him to make such insane claims as that Israel was responsible for the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib, that Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin want regime change in Iran so that Israel can take back southern Lebanon, that Zarqawi and al-Tawhid were shadows made up by the US so that Bush could claim that Iraq is tied to the WOT, and now his even more startling claim that the most recent Iranian elections (he says 2005 but likely means 2004 as no elections have yet taken place in Iran) were more transparent than their Iraqi equivalents, even though everybody accept the folks in academia accept that it was rigged in favor of the hardliners. You want links to any these more bombastic statements, just let me know and I’ll be happy to send ‘em your way.
Basically, if Cole is going to complain about you making statements that are “inaccurate” (i.e. disagree with his own) about Iraq, he needs to get the freakin’ Redwood out of his own eye.
[Name withheld]
PS – You may want to note that for all of Cole’s complaining about you not knowing any Arabic (even though, as somebody already mentioned, Cole doesn’t know any Hebrew but has no problem lecturing us on his thoughts on the subject of Israel), one might note that he cites Mike Scheuer’s second book favorably because he can use it to attack Satan, err, Dubya. Scheuer doesn’t speak a word of Arabic, he relies almost entirely on FIBS to get ahold of his info, so why isn’t he held in equal contempt by Cole among the punditocracy?