[RFEngineer]

Japan and Germany had established cultures, institutions, histories and governmental bodies, along with productive citizens.

They were hijacked by evil. They are examples of a defeated enemy becoming trusted allies because they could be such examples.

There is nothing like this in Iraq, Afghanistan. Those follies were never designed to succeed.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

I think you're exactly right. I have to admit, I thought also that we could set up something like a democracy in Iraq just as we had in Japan. The key difference is the culture and especially religion. If their religious/political ideas are so diametrically opposed to freedom, rule by the people according to a constitution will never happen. Too bad we had to deal with Muslim Iraq and not any of the previous Mesopotamian empires.

I think our best bet for the Middle East is to set up networks of spies, and support strongmen who oppose Islamism but are not brutal toward the people they rule.

[LS]

Japan did have an “established” culture (so does most of the Middle East, just not one you like), but that culture was hardly the liberal western culture people think of when they discuss even Nazi Germany. Japan was a quasi-theocracy, part-autocracy governed by the military through proxies; it had a feudal agricultural system; the emperor was believed to be a god and people could not even look him in they eye; and their “modern” industry was completely socialized. There was not a great deal of difference between Japan and Iran, except Iran doesn’t have any one person who can dictate to it in terms of religion the way Hirohito did.