Does the WSJ's Fouad Ajami know as little about U.S. politics as he does about Iraq?

Just curious.

Because during the run-up to the Bush invasion, Ajami was a relentless cheerleader for the war and was depicted, at least by those in the press, as a deep-thinking scholar whose insights into the Middle East and Persian Gulf, and especially the dark vision of the contemporary Arab world that Ajami painted, were terribly, terribly important.

But in terms of the Iraq War, it turned out Ajami had no idea what he was talking about.

Here's VP Dick Cheney quoting Ajami during a 2002 speech, as Cheney made the case for war [emphasis added]:

As for the reaction of the Arab "street," the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans."

So I was bit skeptical when I read Ajami back in the WSJ opinion pages going on and on about U.S. politics and how Obama doesn't know what he's doing, he's misread the country, how his health care reform bill is a mess, and how those polite town hall critics really saved democracy. Etc., etc.

The column itself is virtually indistinguishable from what other robotic Journal columnist  type up (i.e. Peggy Noonan, Fred Barnes). But it's quite odd to see Ajami, who staked his reputation as a foreign policy expert, now explaining to the rest of us how domestic U.S. politics really work. And it's odd to see a Iraq war cheerleader who could not have been more wrong about that monumentally important foreign policy decision, now turn around and lecture Democrats about why Obama's got domestic policy all wrong.

Fool me once, Ajami.