[rob777]

Fighting radical Islam head on is one thing. Staying in Iraq to build schools and repair water lines in the hope that a forced "democracy" will somehow chase terrorism away is, again, hopelessly naive.





Terrorism is just that, an "ism". That is to say, it is an ideology, much like communism. The only way to defeat an ideology is to counter it with another ideology. Militant Islam is a form of terrorism, but there are others as well. (At the moment, militant Islam is the main example of terrorism) A military approach alone will not work. To win, we need to engage in a pro-freedom ideological offensive. I think that this is what the administration is trying so convey, although not so effectively. Finally, a "forced" democracy is one thing, using force to stop the proponents of terrorism from denying a people a chance at democracy is another. Which is the case here depends on where the majority of the population stand on this. It is still too early to tell.

[mikeus_maximus]

I understand the rationale. Dropping a nominally democratic government in the ME, especially one which bows to Islam, is a poor and indirect attempt to change a widespread religious belief. It's as naive as the belief of the 60's children that we could have global peace if we just spread enough love.