Iraq is teaching us a lesson

Perhaps we learned a lesson in Iraq. We cannot invade another country and expect to make them a democratic friend of ours very easily.

Of course, we did it in the World Wars. But in those cases, our friends were invaded first with intentions by the enemies to overtake them.

And perhaps we could have done it when Iraq invaded Kuwait and we went to that country’s rescue. But we stopped at the Iraq border.

We invaded Iraq this time with intentions of removing an obstacle to democracy in the mideast and perhaps changing a place where terrorism against us could ferment. And it may yet work out that way. But it has been tough.

In the future, we should consider converting countries that could become dangerous to the common good of the world by other means. Diplomacy, perhaps, would be wishful thinking. But there are other non-violent means to put a forceful message across such as economic help if they put forth efforts to improve their society, denying them products they may need to exist and even blockading their ports from receiving goods that would increase their capacity to rule their people.

Meanwhile, we hope that Gen. David Petraeus is correct in his assessment that our surge in Iraq is showing progress and there are some expectations that the country will be able to keep the democratic structure we gave it. But it has been tough.