So would you say then that the US is governed by force, or simply not governed? Regardless, Iraq does not even have guns used to protect the ballot box, just another in a long line of kleptocrats with power based on a preponderance of US-supplied weapons.


They are still repressed; the only difference is that the faction responsible now varies by locale. THIS is Iraq today:


We did not "liberate" them, we removed the only obstacle (Saddam) to a bloody three-way civil war between Sunni/Shiite Iraqis and Kurds. If that does not happen now it will only because Iran assumes full control of the country (possibly precipitating a second Iran-Iraq War, though perhaps not, since that was mainly Saddams idea, or perhaps Reagan, who took in a lot of federal revenue selling guns to both sides.)

I get it, man: Bushs Iraq war against someone even Congressional Republicans five years earlier admitted was no threat to the US was holy and just (i.e. Republican) and Obamas Afghan war against someone who sheltered and trained the people who blew up the Twin Towers is bloody fools errand (i.e. Democratic.) Even though Bush started that war, too (he just never finished it any more than the other.)

Partisanship aside, however, Iraq was and is no more "democracy ready" than Afghanistan; if anything, 30 years of Saddams rigid police state made them far less prepared for it than 10 years of Taliban theocracy did Afghanistan.