In The New York Times on September 22, 2002, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said: ” ‘I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that Iraq, properly managed–and it’s going to take a lot of attention, and the stakes are enormous…it really could turn out to be, I hesitate to say it, the first Arab democracy…I think the more we are committed to influencing the outcome, the more chance there could be that it would be something quite significant for Iraq, it’s going to cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran, but across the whole Arab world, I think.’ ”
– Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 77