OT: Iraq--Tex,
Your analysis is correct for the most part, but I need to object to at least one portion: you state that the first thing we should've done after the initial invasion was to start up the infrastructure for polling/elections/etc.
While this certainly would have made more sense than the endless and seemingly pointless patrolling which terrorized the locals, there was something else which needed to be done which never was--and, for the most part, stilll hasn't been done despite 4+ years and a half-trillion dollars flushed down the toilet: Rebuilding the half of the country that we destroyed in the initial "shock & awe" blitzkrieg. Water, electricity, hospitals, food supplies, schools--in addition to the unknown tens of thousands of people (most of them civilians) who were killed, we also pretty much destroyed most of the utilities and other infrastructure necessary for daily life.
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