“Obviously it was happenstance, but it did change my opinion of human nature. I now saw war as a constant, akin to wildfires. They break out unless you work actively to prevent them. Its an atavisti...”

“The administration often used the analogy of planting the seeds of democracy in the Middle East, as if theyd sprout into democratic regimes as nature took its course. Democracy doesnt sprout like a...”

“When I first arrived in Baghdad in January 2003, I thought I would soon rent a house and envisioned myself swimming in the Tigris to cool off after reporting in the city the caliphs called Madinit ...”

“In 2009, Hamas was relatively new to power. It had won elections just three years earlier and was flexing its newfound strength via a war with its old enemy, Israel, which it officially wants destr...”

“Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.”

“Kidnapping is always a threat in this life of reporting on men hurting one another because of religion and politics.”

“In an era of globalization, people recognize that they are part of a global society, but they have no idea how to make such a society work. So far, no unified vision or leadership has emerged to gu...”

“Everybody should be equal in a democracy - that is the nature of a democracy.”

“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words ...”