An insightful piece by Marina Ottaway (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/ Democracy and Rule of Law Project) begins with:
The war in Iraq will undoubtedly result in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his regime.
But the ensuing political reconstruction will probably not result in the transformation of Iraq into a democratic country, nor will it lead to a wave of democratic change sweeping the entire Middle East.
The reason is simple.
The United States cannot shock and awe Iraqis into accepting a new political system, nor can it impose one with force once the occupation ends. The ultimate outcome of political reconstruction depends on the Iraqis: If the different ethnic, religious, tribal and political factions can reach enough agreement on the outline of a new political system, the country may eventually develop into a democracy. If they cannot, the country will sink into chaos or turn to another strongman for stability after the occupation.
And it ends with:
The example of Bahrain is a case in point. Under a new constitution that does not in any way limit the power of the king, Bahrain a few months ago held elections for half the members of a rather powerless parliament; the remaining members are appointed by the king. Despite the obvious limitations of the exercise, the United States chose to praise Bahrain warmly for its progress toward democracy.
The United States enjoys immense military superiority, but it does not have a comparable advantage in the political arena. The political future of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries will be determined more by their domestic politics than by U.S. policy.
In between are cogent comparisons of the politics of post-WW II Germany and Japan and post-war Middle East countries, pointing out the reasons why democratization is not likely to work in Iraq.
We will have gotten rid of the Hussein regime, which is good. But that

I do love it when I find support for my position among women a whole lot smarter than I am.
The war’s consequences on feminism and the international community were the focus of a panel discussion held at Cornell University on March 25.
The opening speaker addressed the positions of organizations such as Code Pink, which confronts “war as a women’s issue.” Code Pink claims that current ideologies of international politics are poisoned because they are “dominated by testosterone and a military which engenders a culture of aggression.”
[Pardon me, but wooo hooo. Wasn’t that what I was just recently saying??]
The five panelists were Prof. Marcia Greenberg, law; Jane Marie Law, the H. Stanley Krushen Professor of World Religions; Prof. Andrea Parrot, policy analysis and management; Prof. Anna Marie Smith, government and Christine Cuomo, Society for the Humanities postdoctoral fellow.

We will continue to fight to protect our rights as American citizens and the rights of all people worldwide to live in peace. This is what democracy looks like.
This is the final statement of a letter from a member of Women Against War that I posted. It deserves repeating because the message tends to get lost in the confusing “support the troops; oppose the war” rhetoric.
We must continue to “fight” for peace — not with physical force, but with open, public, non-violent, articulate protest. We must fight by becoming involved in trying to affect local policies and politics. We must fight with more than peaceful words; we fight with non-violent actions. While words have power, until that power is used to craft and implement intelligent action, the power of words is simply potential.
We must continue to “fight” with protests that are peaceful, orderly, organized, and informed. If the choice is made for civil disobedience, it must be made recognizing that there are consequences to breaking the law. We must continue the widespread sharing of both factual and personally-experienced information from around the world; this kind of information is fundamental to empowering the ordinary citizen to understand his/her choices and to make those choices only after critical and compassionate analysis and discussion.
That is how we fight we for freedom — by modeling democratic methods. That’s what will change the world into a planet of collaborating democracies. Not war. Not physical force. Not propaganda. Not even intellectual arguments. But by modeling — both individually and nationally — what we expect others to emulate.
This is what democracy looks like.