"He later told me that he thought democracy will never work over there and we're wasting our time. "

In the time leading up to the current war and after the occupation started I read a column (in Norwegian) by an Iraqi intellectual still living and working near Baghdad. According to what he wrote at the time, a lot of Iraqis were quite open to the idea of real democracy. They were hungry for freedom of speech, the freedom to discuss openly all the ideas suppressed under Saddam. The freedom to actually take part in making their country better. They wanted a lot of what the US were offering.

Where the US lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people were in such simple things as the sudden loss of the bureaucracy that kept the country going. The police force disappeared, the public works stopped (no water, no electricity, no sanitation, no salaries for government employees - including doctors, nurses, teachers etc.)

I admit this is a simplistic examination of it, but as a lot of people pointed out at the time (including high ranking military officers) , a real plan for what to do with Iraq, how to manage the peace at the time, could have forestalled a lot of the problems that we've been facing with the "civil war" etc.  

So the problem with achieving "victory" has, to some extent, been about restoring Iraqi confidence in the US as a friend to the Iraqi people. It's been about how to maneuver back into a position of strength. Not just one of military strength, necessarily, but political strength. Where the various Iraqi factions see that ultimately their best interests lie in co-operating peacefully with eachother and the US.

I think democracy will work in Iraq, given some time. I'm just not sure how willing some of the most powerful players in the area are to find out.

Yeah, I love the idea of a nation achieving democracy if the majority of the people want it.  My big problem with it was the ends not justifying the means.  Thousands dead at our hands, and thousands of ours dead, and 600 billion dollars later (which is part of the implication for the state of our economy).  But overall, it just wasn't right; coax a nation to seek democracy, don't force it with superior firepower.  Bush claims it's important for the stability of the region, but does anyone argue that our standing with most of the rest of the world has suffered because of it?

"I laughed out loud when I read this. I'm sure you can see why!"

I was taking a course in the history of the english suffragette movement, and one of the things that really stood out were the many rich, prominent women who vocally opposed a woman's right to vote or be elected to office.  These women's opinions were then paraded around as reflecting the view of "proper" women.

It was wildly amusing. I felt like someone should have told them that the only way their opinion on the issue would matter was if the suffragettes were right. In which case their opinion would be wrong.  

Just like the only way for a nation to achieve democracy by a "majority vote" is if they're already living in a democracy. 

Most western democracies have started with limited "voting power" systems. First with landed nobility getting a vote, then by the vote being extended to people with money, then to men, then to everybody over a certain age. The expansion of democratic rights has been a struggle between differing interests. Some of them born from practical concerns, others from idealism. 

The bottom line is that the history of the expansion of the core democratic right, the right to vote, has been one of a small minority making the decision.  Certainly the public had a voice, but aside possibly from some revolutions, it hasn't really been a majority decision. (Except, of course, being made by a majority of the minority)

Many wonderful contradictions in human history.

The only comment I can recall is Mitt Romney's promise to "double Guantanamo", leaving me finally convinced what an asshat he was.

I found three real human Americans last night who didn't know what Guantanamo Bay was.  That Harold & Kumar movie made less of an impression than I thought...

I can't answer Neil's question, but Tom Friedman asks some other relevant questions -- specifically about the GOP's drill mantra and the Dem's "Afghanastan is the good war" mantra.  Interesting stuff.