Dan White wrote:
"Rob Mitchell" wrote in message
...

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.)



History may not support your guess. Look at Italy, Germany and Japan after
WW2. People said the exact same thing about those places, and look at them
now. I think we were in Japan for 7 years, and people said they were
basically unable to support a democracy. I don't see a reason for your
extremely negative spin on the potential outcome in Iraq other than sour
grapes. If some form of democracy and real peace comes out of Iraq the
skeptics will have nothing left to complain about. I'd say that so far Iraq
is on track. I don't know the final outcome, either, but I see no reason to
conclude that the effort is sure to fail. But, you are entitled to your
opinion of course.

dwhite


I'd love to be proven wrong. As for fighting insurgencies, perhaps
Vietnam would be a better example. Japan might be a reasonable
comparison, I don't know enough about it other than it was bombed pretty
heavily at the end.

One encouragement that I have seen is that in order to win this kind of
fight you have to build alliances with the factions. The US seems to
have a good alliance with the Kurds, and possibly with the Shia. Other
than that, I haven't heard or read much that is promising.

Rob