[Chgogal]

Germany, Japan and South Korea are definitely great examples of "futile exercises in nation-building".

For that matter, I think a well educated person can make a descent argument that the US was pretty good at continent building starting with the US itself and then including Europe and South East Asia. Just a thought.

[Alberta's Child]

All three of those countries were viable nations long before the U.S. got involved with "building" them. Iraq is not a "nation" in any sense of the word. It is nothing more than a dysfunctional remnant of the colonial era in that region, and does not have a common culture, language, or religious/ethnic makeup. Iraq is no more a nation than Yugoslavia was, and it is absolutely naive to think anyone can cobble something together in the Middle East and call it "Iraq" without using a repressive, totalitarian government to oversee it.