J _ R K - Pat, I'd like to buy an "E"

[kandrathe]

This part, IMO, is wishful thinking.
Given time?  Will grow legs?  Iraq needs so much more than time.  Iraq needs in depth support and patience.

Given opportunity, the various parties in whose interest a democratic and stable Iraq is NOT -- give them time and the usual lack of will in the international community -- and you will see Iraq have its so called "legs" cut out from under it, leaving yet another handicapped state.

I will offer a different case that has less economic potential, Haiti, as evidence that even in compariativley simple, isolatable, relatively benign conditions the international community, of which the US is a part, can only do so much. 

Iraq is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult, maybe more.

Occhi
[right][snapback]66916[/snapback][/right]

Yes, I agree. Investment, reconstruction, patience, and security.

The big difference would be that Haiti is not sitting on a mountain of gold. Iraq's neighbors to the south choose to horde that wealth for a select few, so it will be interesting to see how this new nation decides to care for it's citizens. Without those legs, it devolves into another 3rd world pool for the hopelessness of the disenfrancised.