This could never have been done as quickly as it was attempted. It really takes years; look at how long we occupied Japan and Germany after WWII. Germany had some tradition of democracy previous to Hitler; Japan had close to none. We did not go to war with either with the goal of establishing democracy; we went to war with both with the goal of total victory. After that, we worked on installing democracy.
President Bush said that the War on Terror would take many years, but then didn't really act as if it would. I still can't think what he was doing after his re-election. If he had prosecuted the war(s) in the ME more strongly, there would hav been quite an outcry from the left, but there has been the same outcry from the left, anyway. And moderate-to-conservative voters would not have been let down by the top-level drift and endless drip, drip, drip of bad news. We might have held the House and/or Senate. What a mess Rumsfeld, Bush, and Rice let this become. I am very sorry to say that. Perhaps the situation in Iraq/ME can still be turned around, but why was it allowed to get this way after Bush's re-election?
Agree wholeheartedly
They hadn't a clue it would be this difficult.
I'm still waiting to see the pre-war intel (Powell's speech to the UNSC in particular) validated. It hasn't been but people instead like to obfuscate with rusting artillery shells that were never the original issue.
I fault the Neo-Cons for not recognizing fundamental realities.
Sadly good intentions don't matter in the long run.