Danielle Pletka, Middle East “expert” at the American Enterprise Institute, in January 2007 Vanity Fair, on the neo-conservative fantasy of democratising Iraq:
“I think that even though the president remains rhetorically committed to the idea of what he calls his ‘freedom agenda,’ it’s over. It turns out we stink at it. And we don’t just stink at it in Iraq. We stink at it in Egypt. And in Lebanon. And in the Palestinian territories. And in Jordan. And in Yemen. And in Algeria. And everywhere else we try at it.”