[ACPlayer]

If you read my posts you will see that I am the last person to force our way of life on them, in fact quite the contrary. The neo-con notion (specially as extended by the likes of MMMMMM) call for us to spread democracy by dropping Nukes, taking out leaders etc. I think this is wrong. The way forward is to work towards letting them build their society while having cooperative and constructive relationships with them. In particular I consider the economic embargo of Iran to be wrong (as well as that of Cuba etc). If we trade with them, encourage their investment in us and our companies get to invest in them, the resulting creation of ties brings prosperity to the region (and us) and creates interdependence.

As I have pointed out before, China is a good example. When Nixon went to China it was considered an enemy, communist state. Today, China can no longer be considered an active military enemy (all posturing aside) as the economic stake of the Chinese in maintaining relations is way too high and vice-versa. If we make Iran and Cuba and Islam our enemy then, of course, they will take steps to counter this threat. Just as we would.

Along with active commerce in the country will come the forces that shape the body politic of that country. China, still a highly repressive, regime is now a bit more open and I would hazard a guess will continue to be a more open society. It is not for us to force that change, their people will make that happen in a durable lasting way.

Moving all-in with military forces is not good poker when viewed in the long run. Even MMMMMM recognized that the Iraq strategy mirrored the short term thinking of the tournament player rather than the long term thinking of the cash player.