A report from the new Middle East—and a glimpse of its possible future

State of the Union January
February 2008 Atlantic Monthly | by Jeffrey Goldberg

Not long ago, in a decrepit prison in Iraqi Kurdistan, a senior interrogator with the Kurdish intelligence service decided, for my entertainment and edification, to introduce me to an al-Qaeda terrorist named Omar. “This one is crazy,” the interrogator said. “Don’t get close, or he’ll bite you.”