I don’t really think there is any kind of a reasonable argument against intervention in Syria. Quite the opposite: There is a moral and a human imper… - Kanan Makiya

Freedom is a heady thing. To an Iraqi, it is like being awakened from a 30-year nightmare by a blinding blaze of bright white light. When a young man steals a television set from the Ministry of Education, he thinks he is striking a blow against the Ba'ath Party. He has not yet become aware that he is in fact stealing it from a building that now belongs to him and is about to start serving his needs, and not those of his tormentors.

I think there's a less than 5 percent chance that what I'd like to see happen actually happens. But it seems to me an obligation, even if it’s a 5 percent chance, to try to make it happen. You could call it a triumph of hope over experience. But what else is politics if not that?

I ran into a whole number of people for whom bodies did not count. You know: the historical process, the victory for the working class. The great big idea that could take place at the expense of any number of bodies because ultimately, in the very, very long run, lives would be saved. I would not make that argument anymore. It is utterly repugnant to me.