the clandestine diary of an ordinary iraqi

[November 5th, 2003] the clandestine diary of an ordinary iraqi
by Salam Pax
(Grove, 206 pages, $13)

Maybe you got the email, days before the invasion of Iraq: "Is this guy for real?" "Hoax!" "Is he CIA?" Someone in Baghdad was risking life, limb and testicular electrification to keep a weblog. And whether you bought his authenticity or not, the Iraqi Blogger proved a compelling mystery man: funny, fruity, totally psyched about the new Massive Attack album, equally informed by hatred of Saddam and skepticism about the "coalition of the willing."

Now, six months after the end of major combat operations (or whatever), the pseudonymous Salam Pax produces the first book you should pluck from the mounting pile of post-war (or whatever) tomes. His diary--verbatim from http:// dear_raed.blogspot.com--is a fast, cheap, richly annotated reality check to Western perspectives on Iraq's stuttering liberation.

To hawks, Salam says: "Excuse me, but it would help much more if you would stop dropping those million-dollar bombs on us." Surely a sentiment to warm peacenik hearts. Yet Pax brooks no sympathy for radical-chic doves, convinced Baghdad '03 is just another San Salvador '83. In Salam's eyes, the vaunted "human shields" are pampered sandalista tourists, puppets for a loathsome criminal government. He wants freedom. He just doesn't want to die to get it.

Here at last, then, is testimony from Iraq worth taking seriously. Pax blends war-zone grit with intuitive global perspective, welded by his own intriguingly protean character. Pax is cultured, secular, media-addicted, apparently gay. He is a proud product of Islamic and Iraqi culture, yet his relationship with his heritage is nuanced and ever-evolving, hardly susceptible to Western analysis of the "Arab street."

That's the main value of Diary. Salam Pax, writing with humanity, rationality and irony, reminds us how little we know about the country we've conquered, and the people we propose to free.