[Mb-civic] Dreams turned to dust

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Dreams turned to dust 
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The war rages on, but the administration's goal of exporting democracy has already failed.

By David Rieff
David Rieff is the author of "At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention" and "A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis," among other books. He reports frequently from Iraq.

March 19 2006

THREE YEARS AFTER IT BEGAN, it is still impossible to know whether the United States has lost the war in Iraq, as many critics and journalists on the ground there have long believed (and as some conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. have come to think as well), or whether disaster there might yet be averted. But what is clear is that the Bush administration's prewar ambition to transform Iraq into a modern model for a democratic Middle East has already failed. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-rieff19mar19,0,3023063.story?coll=la-home-commentary 

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