"Fouad A. Ajami", was a MacArthur Fellowship winning, Lebanon/Lebanese-born of Shiite Muslim ancestry American university professor and writer on Middle Eastern issues. He was a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Ajami was an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War, of which nobility, he believed, there "can be no doubt".

More Fouad Ajami on Wikipedia.

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.

The remarkable thing about the terror in Iraq.

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

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.

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

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 violence has subside, has been betrayed.

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

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