U.S. Officials Rethink Hopes for Iraq Democracy

What does this mean? In other words, you will settle for anything that provides stability in Iraq. Well, in that case, maybe should have left Saddam Hussein in power. Oh, right, he was a threat to Israel. According to the neocons he had to go. What other justification could there be if democracy is not your main objective in Iraq? Was it that he was not allowing Western oil companies to control the oil fields? Maybe it was a combination of both. We are certainly not in Iraq to fight terrorism, because al Qaeda and Iran had no presence in that country before we got there. On top of that, even before the war, the intelligence community said that an invasion of Iraq would lead to the growth of terrorism in the region:

Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration's stated goals of the war.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.

Why not start a coup de e'tat and install a military dictator like what you have in Pakistan? The U.S. government historically has been very good at installing dictatorships throughout the world. Then again, it military rule didn't go to well in Vietnam:

"Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds.