Zalmay Khalilzad on the need for strategists and policy-makers to be well-traveled

“You know, the Germans say you have a ‘fingertip feel’ — Fingerspitzengefuhl — the sense of a place, you know how a place smells, how it feels. A strategist who doesn’t have that innate sense about the area he’s working on is going to get us in trouble. The U.S. government doesn’t have enough people at the top who have that special sense about Iraq and the Middle East on their fingertips. We have the very best people working on it, but, given its importance, we need more.”
–Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Baghdad, in the New Yorker, 12/19/05

Posted by | Comments Off on Zalmay Khalilzad on the need for strategists and policy-makers to be well-traveled  | May 5, 2006
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

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