Hi RA,

Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
Me too, but when I hear "Officers who wish to remain anonymous are suggesting that democracy may not work in Iraq," I suspect that the COIN experts have figured out there's a reason why it hasn't been done before.
"Democracy is a wonderful thing or will be once we have someone in power who will tell us how to make it work" (paraphrase - anonymous Russian taxi driver to Robert Heinlein).

I really think it is important to separate out the process from the form since the deal with related, but different, cultural factors. Insisting on a "democracy", and a particular form of it at that, was, IMO, one of the greatest blunders in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In my mind, a lot of it comes down to concepts of "legitimacy", which is a slippery cultural perception.