Sure, but those two cases (Germany and Japan), are the examples that armed intervention can work. The problem isn’t in winning the war, it’s in winning the peace. ISTM the reason it worked in those two cases is because the US actually wanted to do nation building the right way*. The reason it hasn’t worked since then is because that same willingness to do nation building the right way disappeared from the US government in the 1950s, and shows no signs of returning.
*. I don’t buy that story about how Germany and Japan were successfully transformed into liberal democracies because their societies were somehow ready for it in a way that say Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. weren’t. If that was the case, Germany would have become a liberal democracy after WWI and Hitler would have died as a sad sack anonymous veteran in some German VA hospital some time in the 50s, having never seen anything close to political power. The reason they were successful is because they (Germany and Japan) got lucky with Marshall and MacArthur.
I think it was also because Nazi Germany and WWI Imperial Japan were aberrations. Neither culture was historically nearly that crazy. So it was largely less anything “working” than it was them resetting to a more normal baseline after the outright lunatics were removed. There’s also the issue that they were the attackers.
Which is why it won’t work with Iran, as most of out hostility has nothing to do with any “craziness” on their part. They aren’t going to start sucking up to us or convert to a different religion even if the present regime is thrown out of power. Especially given that we are the attackers and have been for decades; it’s reasonable for the Iranians to hate us.
'Zactly. Pre-WWII Japan and Germany weren’t 21st Century countries; nobody was. But they were mostly sane moderate modern-for-the-time largely democratic countries. And they returned to that after the aberation of Tojo & Hitler was forcibly removed. 1946 wasn’t a totally ner cultural experience for the citizenry. It was mostly reverting to pre-Depresson normalcy.
Just as I expect the USA to return to sanity (eventually) after trump. Chastened sanity we hope, but sanity nonetheless. If we can’t / won’t that’ll be down to some combo of 21st century propaganda / bots and American exceptionalism.
As you say, none of that applies to Iran. They are and will remain culturally Muslim. Which so far has shown a real difficulty dealing with stable democratic pluralistic politics.
Not only were they Muslim, they were already Twelver Shia since the 1500s. Their religion isn’t the problem here; they did just fine dealing with stable, democratic, pluralistic countries until “revolutionaries” took over.
Yup I have no beef with Iran as a culture or a historical country. I’m not too fond of their government of the last ~45 years. Which largely is not the fault of most of the current populace.
What I was trying, probably too clumsily, to say was that they themselves don’t have a history of being a democratic pluralistic largely secular country.
For the e.g. Americans to think that deposing Mossadegh, or the Shah, or the Ayatollah would suddenly convert Iranian culture and politics into a sorta-clone image of pre-trump USA is dumb.
But time after time various pundits and leaders on left and right seem to think that everywhere wants to be like us if only their current dictator was removed. That’s a failed idea. See also Arab Spring - Wikipedia.
now our current criminal regime isn’t thinking beyond the end of trump’s spleen. And his hope to somehow personally own the oil there, or at least personally get a large commission on each barrel pumped.
With regards to Pluralism, Iran is a multiethnic society and part of the reason that I don’t think it is likely that it will fall Part as a failed state as a result of the war is the fact that ethnic minorities in Iran, be they Arab, Azeri, Balochi, Kurdish, or so on are actually very well integrated into Iranian society.
And they have more of a history of democracy and separation of church and state than do most of their neighbors.