I don’t think the constitution will make or break Iraq. What will make or break Iraq is the coalition of this national will.

Even [Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani] does not want a quote-unquote Islamic State, … He wants a state that respects the place of Islam in public life.

[These others — the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s people — have repeatedly given every indication of valuing their newfound freedom: voting in two elections at the risk of their lives, preparing for a third, writing...

I think the violence will continue. Alas, we have learned not to believe that deliverance is around the corner. We are at the end of year three of this war and every hope that the...

There must have been great yearning and repression in Mohamed Atta’s life; it is the torment of Atta’s generation. They were placed perilously close to modernity, but they could not partake of it.

What’s really important is the emergence of a political class that would agree on the rules of the game.

I don’t think countries in the region are ruled by constitutions.

The remarkable thing about the terror in Iraq,

a phoenix. His faith in Iraq and in himself has been incredible.

The secret is out. There is something decent unfolding in Iraq. It’s unfolding in the shadow of a terrible insurgency, but a society is finding its way to constitutional politics.