[tpanther]

“We’ve never done so and our few Wilsonian attempts have always failed.”

Wilson has long been dead, look up the Truman doctrine.

Germany and Japan to name a couple, are examples.

[George W. Bush]

Germany and Japan to name a couple, are examples.

Both were well-established nations. Japan from ancient times. Germany, like Italy, was a series of small territories ruled under petty nobles and only unified in the past few hundred years.

So those really were both established nations with a cohesive culture and national identity prior to our garrisoning of them.

Iraq? Just some lines drawn on a map to create military administrative districts by generals of the British empire. When Saddam and his predecessors took it over, it still was only something to hold by force because it had no cohesive national identity and history other than as a colonial entity composed of two violently opposed rival Arab theologies and a Kurdish minority with legitimate aspiration to independence.

Still, with enough oil wealth you might make it into something like a country. I won't say it's impossible. But it would happen more quickly if we would withdraw, at least to our desert bases to guard it from its greedy neighbors until they can re-establish a national defense. Better yet, bring the troops home altogether and simply guarantee its borders against Iran, Syria and especially Turkey who has its eye on the oil-rich Kurdish north.