Nation-Building? A Sometimes Thing, at Best

Via Southern Appeal, this interesting little tidbit:

The results of applying these principles to the political outcomes in the 51 cases of intervention are shown in the following table. Overall, the results indicate that military intervention succeeded in leaving behind democracies in 14 cases—27 percent of the time. The conclusion, then, is that nation building by force is generally unsuccessful. A president who went around the world invading countries to make them democratic would fail most of the time. One group of countries that seem especially resistant to democracy-building efforts are the Arab lands. There have been are nine interventions in Arab countries in the past century. In no case did stable democracy follow the military occupation. (James Payne)

The article is not too long, and includes a reasonable set of premises. Hey--the President's right about Church Lady Miers, right? How could he be wrong in emulating the High Priest of Globaloney, Woodrow Wilson??