1/ Kanan Makiya, in a NYT Magazine profile by Dexter Filkins:

“You know, in a way, the realists are right, they are always right. Even when they are morally wrong.”

2/ Ali Allawi, former minister of defense and trade in Iraq and a friend of Makiya’s, ibid.:

“Kanan is a romantic. He thinks in these broad categories. He thinks of democracy, of freedom, in ideological terms rather than in terms of practice and experience and living.”