Emma Sky on Becoming Emma Sky

Emma Sky, author and Middle East expert, discusses how she, a "female, civilian, British pacifist," became the chief advisor to the U.S. military in Iraq.

This interview has been edited and condensed, a rush transcript is below. 

Gideon Rose:  Tell me a little bit about you how you got to be such a crucial player in the Iraq story, and why that's actually somewhat an unexpected outcome?

Emma Sky:  Well, when I was a student, an undergrad at Oxford, it was the first Gulf War, and I was very pacifist.  I was on all the anti-war demonstration and I