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.

I speak Urdu quite a lot, too, and I read a lot of Persian.

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.

My main expertise is in the past, but if I have to extrapolate into the future, I would say: no good news any time soon and an obvious exit strategy is not apparent to me.

I lived in the Muslim world for 10 years.

Partisan politics has no place in the classroom.

Take the decision in early March to arrest Muqtada al-Sadr. It was made apparently without knowledge or understanding of the nature of his movement or how widespread it is.

I think that there's been an unfortunate tendency for right wing think tanks to dominate these discussions. They often produce very shoddy studies and policy recommendations, which are nevertheless taken very seriously.

It's not proper for a professor to go before a class and promote one party or another. That's not academic scholarship.

But September 11 marked a big change in the sense that the public was suddenly interested, and as a professor at a public university I felt a responsibility to respond to all of the inquiries about the Islamic world.

Administering another country is always a very tricky proposition.

An occupying power has no right to make significant alterations in the character of the occupied society, to change the laws all around, without a strong security reason and so forth.

Public interest in most of the Middle East was slight at that time; the Arab-Israeli conflict was all that people were interested in and that was not my specialty.

For instance, I was a little surprised that the Shiites didn't rise up against Saddam and the Baath party across most of the country when the Americans moved in March and April of 2003.

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 think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates.

I believe that the American administration of Iraq has been arrogant, has pursued policies that are illegal in international law and has been ignorant and incompetent. I said this very forthrightly to the senators.

Did you know that they introduced the 15 percent flat tax on individual and corporate income in Iraq? Something that some politicians very much wanted to push in the United States without success but in Iraq they do it.

I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

If the economy becomes disembodied from society it can only lead to disaster.

In a very alert and bright state of society people learn co-operation by themselves, but in older and quieter conditions of laboring enterprise, such a bill as I propose will point out the way to mutual exertion.

We are shifting from a managerial society to an entrepreneurial society.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

I'm about to become a member of the Chemists Society of America. I'm very proud of that.

I am as frustrated with society as a pyromaniac in a petrified forest.

But most Canadians have recognized to a greater or lesser extent that despite much of the so-called progress of the affluent society, essential ingredients to a meaningful life seem to be either entirely lacking, or at best, difficult to grasp.

It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality.

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.

Radical Chic, after all, is only radical in Style; in its heart it is part of Society and its traditions.

These interests of the workers, as the exploited and oppressed, class of society, are the same in all countries.

Rude contact with facts chased my visions and dreams quickly away, and in their stead I beheld the horrors, the corruption, the evils and hypocrisy of society, and as I stood among them, a young wife, a great wail of agony went out from my soul.

If more people were actively engaged in advocating their positions I think we'd have a better society.

The transfer is a monumental occasion as the Iraqi people take control of their government and their future and forge ahead with creating a society governed by the tenets of life, liberty and freedom.

Australia has an increasingly multicultural society.

Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man.

Friendship! Mysterious cement of the soul, Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society.

Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.

Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

Men who are scandalized at the lack of freedom in Russia do not ask themselves how real is liberty among the poor, the weak, and the ignorant in capitalist society.

I have the satisfaction of knowing I did something useful for society.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.

Who has suffered? The families of the dead, no doubt. But a greater loss was inflicted on Pakistan because, as I said, we lost the pillars of our society.

It's a mistake to assume that Islamists always come from the slums. Indeed, many come from affluent families but for some reason just couldn't manage to integrate into Western society, even though they had good opportunities for advancement.

Fortunes are made, and disappear, over the lifetime of a single generation. Today, a person in essence takes his wealth from society just for the duration of his or her lifetime. The next generation has to create it anew.

The current neglect of the problem can only irritate this deplorable state of affairs. The Black Muslims should constitute a warning to our society, a warning that must be heeded if we are to preserve the society.