Not only is the jury still out on this one, it hasn't even been selected yet. It's way too early to tell. First of all, democracy (or what we style as democracy in our own image) has to take root in Iraq, then it has to serve as a model or be exported to the rest of the Middle East. There is an awful long history of tribalism, factionalism, and clan politics that just won't go away overnight. We have to realize that the members of the electorate in Iraq, and elsewhere in that part of the world, are themselves loyal to one faction or clan or another, so to some extent the democracy will mirror the major tribal or ethnic blocs in the country (i.e., looks like the Shiites will hold poer in Iraq, displacing the minority Sunni who had ruled by raw power under Saddam, a Sunni). We'll probably slap a happy face on things and call the new government democratic if they align themselves to some extent with us (at least for a respectable period of time), don't become a religious Islamic country, and don't kill too many of their oppoents.
