Rolling Stones Renegades Part II - Mick the Conservative

Thanks to "Sweet Neo Con," Rolling Stone jumped to anoint Mick Jagger as a maverick of 2005.

Then they interviewed him:

"Then you wonder, what would we have said if everyone in Iraq had covered the troops in flowers and the country had become this wonderful democracy? Maybe in the long, long run, there will be benefits. There are always two sides to this. It's not going to be 100 percent bad. But you worry about the way it's going to end in the short term: in the next twelve months, two years."

"Part of American and Western culture is that you don't expect the government to do everything. Private money is a large percentage of of relief. You don't expect some hired hand to sort out all of your problems. Obviously, you do expect the government to do certain things - military muscle and such."

What are your hopes for 2006?

"That we can extricate ourselves from the war in Iraq with dignity and some hope for Iraq itself. I'm sure that's on many people's minds, including George Bush."