All our meddling is going to do is destabilize the area and make it worse. Almost every regime change in the Islamic world, for our purposes at least, leads to something that is more detrimental to our interests.

Only an American, from a 200 year-old nation, would believe that swooping in and forcing new values on an area with centuries of culture would (1) work or (2) be a good idea.

Right now you could say it's more unstable than it was before with the active terrorist insurgency waging a quite successful effort to disrupt the democratic process taking effect in Iraq. However, if you look at the various things that have occurred over the last couple years and you take into consideration the goal of a democratic Iraq being successful this particular aspect of our mission being accomplished will go a long way in our efforts to defeat terrorism. Syria has moved its troops out of Lebanon, Lybia has voluntarily given up its weapons programs and agreed to inspections- these thing occurred because of our efforts in Iraq. Iran, is in my opinion by far our greatest threat (though Saudia Arabia's brainwashing Terror Universities run a close second). With a free Iraq to its western boarder we will have greater influence in supporting the large (and young) pro-democractic resistance in Iran. The Guardian Council pulled out all the stops this past election to rig the results but the nation is greatly dismayed by its results. This is the most important task of our mission. To disrupt the balance of power in the region. To foster change and democratic institutions upon the region. We will have to wait decades to see if we've accomplished this goal.

I can't give this more stars until the occupation is over and things have settled down.

Still too early to tell. The Middle East was certainly a mess before we went in and removed Saddam, and it's certainly a mess now that there is anarchy and burgeoning terrorist activity in Iraq. But I'm still hopeful that in the long view, a democratic Iraq can be a positive influence on the region.