The future of Iraq

Let me tell you about a country devastated by war, occupied by the USA, set up with a failed democracy, set up with a security force by the USA used to enforce the will of the failed democracy, and beset by insurgents fueled by a neighboring enemy country. That country was South Korea. The Korean War left the country devastated. Iraq is a the garden of Eden compared to what South Korea was after its war. The USA made huge mistakes during its occupation. Look up the bridge at No Gun-Ri for one of the most well known one. It's "democracy" was actually a dictatorship who used the security forces to enforce its will, kill protesters, and make people "disappear". North Korea was supporting insurgents who numbers approximately 35,000 in 1950. The price in lives they extracted was high including that of the US 24th Infantry Division. And yet through decades of trial and error, a real working democracy was formed by the South Korean people, and now South Korea is one of the world's biggest economic and political powers. This is on a piece of land starved of natural resources and less than 1/4 the size of Iraq. Iraq too has the real possibility of succeeding like South Korea. With its wealth of oil, it should be able to surpass South korea. However, those who expect anything close to it to happen in a few years are unrealistic, at the least. It will most likely take decades for the Iraqi people to form a viable democracy. All the USA can do is provide what support it can, but in the end, it is the Iraqi people, as it was the South Korean people, who will determine their fate.