Well, I take my "optimism" from the words of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, who thought liberty the natural inclination of all men.
I agree with many here that the main impediment to this is Islam, which means (guess what?) not "peace" but SUBMISSION. Now, as a Christian who has studied Islam and actually read the "holy books" (including the Hadith, which most people never even know exists), I'm convinced that Islam itself poses a problem for democracy or ANY form of government because the Koran does not really validate political government. Nevertheless, the reality is that 2 billion Muslims almost all acknowledge some government and have for centuries. So from that standpoint, I don't know that Islam (in reality) is any more of an impediment than Shintoism was to the Japanese.
That is why, though, I don't think we can allow Iraq to become a theocratic regime! And while this is not talked about much, especially by Bush, it is a KEY reason we must work for some sort of democracy (no matter how flawed) there because it undercuts the power of the Imams and Mullahs!
You make some excellent points.
I'm one of those who is reluctant to put too much blame onto Islam -- not beacuse Islam dosn't deserve a lot of blame, but only because it's not going away and I don't want to complain about any fact that can't be changed. People who want to complain about things that can't be changed are just people who are talking themselves into inaction an failure. (I don't mean to say that's what you're doing -- not at all.)
I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Iraq. I think Germany and Japan are the closest models I can think of -- we had to keep troops there for 20-50 years to help them join the community of civilized nations. I don't see any reason that Iraq can't do the same, and I also don't think anyone should expect good things to happen in a shorter time frame. And if we can't succeed in a 20-50 year time frame, we may just have to try longer -- since failure isn't an option.
So that's a long-winded way of saying I agree with you 100%! We cannot allow Iraq to turn into any kind of unfree or undemocratic state.