I certainly don’t claim to know much about the middle east beyond this: Fundamental Islamist Governments Are Bad News.
I also know enough not to expect a Jeffersonian Republic to spontaneously break out any time soon.
Keep the Islamists away and we can deal with the other bad choices those countries might make.
Exactly, people seem to think we can just wave our magic wand and suddenly have Jeffersonian Republics appear out of the blue...it don’t happen that way.