Kanan Makiya: Iraq, Then and Now

Iraqi scholar Kanan Makiya was a passionate, powerful advocate of American intervention in Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. He laid Saddam's crimes before the world, begged for action, dreamed of the democracy that could be.

He promised George Bush in the Oval Office that American soldiers would be greeted with "sweets and flowers" in the streets of Iraq. Now, American soldiers are dying in those streets.

Sober minds call Iraq a catastrophe. And Kanan Makiya — activist and advocate — has had to search his soul.

This hour, On Point: Kanan Makiya now, on his Iraq and America's war.Guest:

Kanan Makiya, professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University and author of "Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq," "The Monument: Art and Vulgarity in Saddam Hussein's Iraq," and "Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World"