[E]ven the most recent media dismantling of the administration’s various
explanations for war seems to have affected the President’s supporters and
the administration itself only marginally. No matter how many times these
explanations have been torpedoed and sent to the bottom, they (or their
cousins) just pop up again like so many Schmoos.
The record of past
U.S. experience in
democratic nation building is daunting. The low rate of success is a sobering
reminder that these are among the most difficult foreign policy ventures for
the United States. Of the sixteen such efforts during
, democracy was sustained in
only four cases ten years after the departure of
U.S. forces. Two of
these followed the total defeat and surrender of Japan and Germany after World
War Ⅱ, and two were tiny Grenada and Panama. Unilateral nation building by the
United States has had an even rougher time — perhaps because unilateralism has
led to surrogate regimes and direct
during the postconflict period. Not one American-supported surrogate regime
has made the transition to democracy, and only one case of direct American
administration has done so.
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