This should be stating the obvious, but obviously it isn’t. Stephen Walt, writing concisely and clearly in Foreign Policy, explains why the US has failed time and again to export democracy through military intervention. The US has a huge monster of an embassy in Baghdad (above), but all it really does is accent its failure to impose an effective democratic regime there. There are two reasons–the target state is automatically unreceptive, and the US has tarnished its own brand with its internal actions. You’ve read that here before–so it’s not only me.
Why democracy can’t be imposed at gunpoint
