From Doug Kern at TCS Daily:

Thus, every time we aspire to build freedom where freedom was not to be found before, we embark upon an act of faith.

An act of faith! Oh, it turns my conservative stomach! Have we built
our free, strong, affluent, educated society on this kind of
sentimental twaddle? And, more specifically: did we embark upon this
mad venture of building democracy in Iraq on the strength of hope? Billions of dollars spent, thousands of lives squandered, all on a wing and a prayer? This is conservatism?

Well, yes and yes and yes.