!["Article]("http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/article-sponsor.gif"){kind=small}
![""]("http://graphics8.nytimes.com/adx/images/ADS/19/61/ad.196154/500days_nytimes_120x60_v03.gif")
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple just one page, indeed just one line: Nothing has changed.
![""]("http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/02/opinion/friedman-ts-190.jpg")
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
It t