Quote Originally Posted by Beelzebubalicious View Post
To me, the biggest factor in all of this is time. You can't really make a tree grow faster than it naturally does and I think the same goes for nations. We're always trying to engineer things to be faster, but it doesn't really work b/c it is against the nature of the thing.
Very true. I was just saying this on another thread, but it fits as well here... one of the problems in the current American interventions is that American leaders are more concerned with legitimizing their actions to their own populaces and the international audience than they are with looking for a realistic solution to the problem. Of course the American people want to hear that we are going to be out of there in a few years and leave a nice functioning American-style democracy behind. It just ain't gonna happen... continuing the tree analogy, it's like announcing that you're gonna plant an acorn today and have a big ol' oak tree by Christmas.