Reconstruction

Matthew Yglesias sheds a little light on a question my discussion group was pondering yesterday, that of the analogy to rebuilding Japan:

Having had the pleasure of living under the rule of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, the other countries of East Asia were totally uninterested (and remain uninterested today) in encouraging Japanese national. Everyone, therefore, was pretty happy to give the Americans a free hand in Japan.

So far, we've benefitted from a roughly similar dynamic. The combination of Saddam's brutality and his habitual destabilizing of the region made people (and even more so, governments) in the Middle East extremely reluctant to engage in any sort of active opposition to America's war. Now that Saddam's gone, however, we will need to contend with various other pernicious ideologies kicking around the region.

Here's my concern: I look around at the thriving democracies (and even the struggling ones), and it seems that almost all (Japan is the most prominent exception) of the progress takes place through internal changes, sometimes gradual and sometimes revolutionary. What they all seem to share is a strong native component to the movement. Think of how important the history and myth of founding fathers and revolutionary leaders is to most countries today.

What I fear is that if Iraqis look upon the history of their government institutions, and find that their liberator is General Franks, and founding 'mother' is Barbara Bodine, what are they supposed to make of that? This is meant as no disrespect to those Americans, and I'm trying to separate this out from the dangers of anti-Americanism. Instead, this is a query of how successful any democratic nation-founding can be so long as the architects and functionaries are foreigners.