"THE INTERNATIONAL ELITE BUBBLE"

I think Michael Totten is the greatest reporter of my life time with regard to getting the facts and reporting what is really happening in the Middle East.  He just doesn't fly for a few days stay to get the "facts" and he doesn't hang around bars talking to other westerners and the "elites" of a country.

Totten's essay is responding to a comment made by Robert D. Kaplan in the WSJ.

Western elites believe that universal values are trumping the forces of reaction. They wax eloquent about the triumph of human rights, women's liberation, social media, financial markets, international and regional organizations and all the other forces that are breaking down boundaries separating humanity.

Tragically, they are really observing a self-referential world of global cosmopolitans like themselves. In country after country, the Westerners identify like-minded, educated elites and mistake them for the population at large. They prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces—such as nationalism and sectarianism—that are mightily reshaping the future.