Sheikh Saad Mushhan Naif al Hardan strode into a hotel lobby in Amman, Jordan, accompanied by two stern faced companions. He wore a tailored suit and was more svelte than I remembered him from over two years earlier, when I had first met him in his village of Albu Aitha, a collection of family compounds nearly hidden by the thick verdant fauna kept fertile...

Imad Moustapha is Syria’s unlikely and embattled emissary to the United States. Himself a blogger, discussing art, literature, his travels and family on his website Weblog of a Syrian Diplomat. Moustapha has been Syria’s ambassador to the U.S. since March 2004. Prior to taking this position he was dean of the faculty of information technology at the University of Damascus and secretary-general of the Arab School of Science and Technology. I met Moustapha in the spacious guest room he reserves in his embassy, decorated with the Syrian art he also publishes on his website. Although in our last meeting Moustapha had been close to gleeful about Lebanese Hizbullah’s defiant stand to the Israeli attacks, his mood was more somber now, as we talked about Iraq and the effect of that country’s...