Lee thanks for your compromise on claim I am between you and Armon about the Karsh quote I don t think it is a fact it is Karsh s opinion HOWEVER Karsh s CV demonstrates that he has the credentials to provide a very credible opinion on this particular topic In addition his politics are moderate and this adds more credibility because he s not Cole s usual target Also reviewing Cole s CV and publications certainly confirms Karsh s point and that of others who made the same point previously Sure Cole is a full professor of History but his area of expertise although in the big area of Middle East is not very relevant to the issues he writes about in the popular press and the blogsphere Successful PhD level academics have very very narrow fields of expertise most folks not familiar with academia would not know this so it is important to an encyclopedia article to let this point stand To use the word claim to refer to Karsh s opinion subtly discredits it and this is out of line by Wikipedia standards Thanks for coming around LLGre MEMRII have to chuckle when you call it my article and read Armon s response Lee Armon and I recently spent two of the best weeks of our lives battling that one out BUT I think that the Cole article could integrate the criticism better than it does now