I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as easy to rule Iraq as they thought.

I argued that the Bush administration, and the Coalition officials more recently, didn't understand Iraqi society. They thought it was a blank slate, that they could use Iraqis as guinea pigs.

... will play the role of rejection in the new Iraq. They are going to demand that all the controversial points in the constitution be addressed right away.

This thing is an enormous fiasco, ... really undermines its legitimacy, and this result guarantees the guerrilla war will go on.

And I withdrew into myself when I understood that they wanted to extract every thought in my head, one by one, like decayed teeth.

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.