[Mr. Mojo]

Usually once you destroy the leadership elite in a nation, one will arrive from a different nation and take over.

New leadership usually rises from within, not without. (OBL in Afghanistan was an anomoly).

Nation-building worked in Japan and Germany after WW2 because they were civilized, technologically sophisticated, first-world nations whose tribal feuds were long over. It should've been obvious that it cannot work in an environment where Islam thrives, but folks are beginning to catch on.

Islamics comprehend only strength, and view our attempts at "winning hearts and minds" as weakness. Sensing weakness, they're less likely to go along with the master plan out of a lack of respect. So all we can really do is keep destroying threatening regimes (without policing them for years after the fact) until they comprehend the situation -- join the civilized world or die.

[muawiyah]

You seem to have missed out on what really happened in Japan and Germany after WWII. The former leadership elite was eliminated or disenfranchised. Direct American occupation went on for many years, and that was followed for another half century with a situation just this side of occupation.

That is, Americans became the new German and Japanese leadership elites.

That's what I said, in general, always yappens. Any Souvrn'r can tell you about it too.