I found this following article very interesting, it concers one of the leading anti-Saddam Hussein writers of the late 80's and the 90's. Kanan Makiya's work was ground breaking at the time and unified opposition on the left against Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, however when Saddam invaded Kuwait that all changed.

As documented in Nick Cohen's excellent 'What's Left?" book, Kanan was then jettisoned by the 'left' and embraced by more mainstream and right wing causes. Ahmed Chalabi and Dick Cheney were admirers of his work. Which brings us to the story at hand, Kanan Makiya has announced that his current project is likely to be his last one about Iraq. It's not going to be a celebration of the overthrow of the despot he spent so long campaigning against either.

“I want to look into myself, look at myself, delve into the assumptions I had going into the war,” he said. “Now it seems necessary to reflect on the society that has gotten itself into this mess. A question that looms more and more for me is: just what did 30 years of dictatorship do to 25 million people?”

“It’s not like I didn’t think about this,” he continued. “But nonetheless I allowed myself as an activist to put it aside in the hope that it could be worked through, or managed, or exorcised in a way that’s not as violent as is the case now. That did not work out.”

[...]

Then there is the small issue of American policy. “Everything they could do wrong, they did wrong,” Mr. Makiya said. “The first and the biggest American error was the idea of going for an occupation.”

Source: New York Times