One thing left out in the article regarding Germany and Japan: Neither one of those countries willingly turned to democracy. They were beat down into total and absolute submission. Western powers killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese and German civilians--innocent and otherwise--mostly otherwise. They would have kept going, too. This was clear to all. It was complete and total ruthlessness on the part of the west that created democracies in Japan and Germany, bottom line.
In the absense of that sort of ruthlessness, the dictators, thugs, religous zealots, and band of second-grade dropout warriors that exist in the middle east will never get the message. In fact, as we play timid, they are getting the opposite message. Many people in Iraq should be living in trembling fear of our forces -- for at least a few months--now, they talk pot shots at them and go home and luaugh.
One of these days, a nuclear bomb will go off somewhere...pick your city....and the west will finally show its fangs and the ruthless killing will begin in earnest. In the end, will it be the Middle East that gets the message of democracy or will it be the Democracies that get the message of religous law? We're so weak and pathtic right now--my god Nanci Pelosi just got elected--I like the chances for Islam to spread to the west.
Just an opinion.
Unfortunately 9/11 wasn't enough to fully wake the sleeping giant. The time will come though, unfortunately for all involved.
The Kurds went through a civil war & established a democratic form of government in their territories, while they were under the Hussein Iraqi government.
Excellent opinion on your part, great! I agree, we have to beat the arabs down into total and absolute submission. And like you say, we won't start along that path until we have a huge tragedy in our midst.