Participatory governments are the least stable, least efficient, but least
intrusive kind of government. So what's your point?


That destabilizing Iraq by invading it might not be in your own best
interests or in the interests of the rest of the world. As far as
threats go, N. Korea is arguably a bigger threat because we know they
have plutonium and the capability to reprocess it, and we know they have
ICBM capability, and we know they have sold the missiles (not with
warheads) to several countries, and we know that they will soon have a
deployable bomb if they don't already.

And yet the world is paying attention to Iraq, and the world's last
remaining big army is bogged down in Iraq.

Much of the world oil supply comes from that region. There have been a
rising number of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia already. With a
strong (but admittedly brutal) government gone in Iraq, it gives the
enemy a potential new base of operations across the gulf from the major
oil fields and ports. (Remember the enemy's goals)

I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq, at least not one that is favourable to the
US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in the
end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in, and all the
while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've heard.
(according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number may not be
accurate, who really knows.)

Some background on the N.Korea announcement is here.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/42084.htm

(I don't mean to get this fine thread off onto N. Korea but that is my
point, as you asked)