I'd defer to someone more intimately aquatinted with Eastern Europe's pre-Soviet history, but my impression is that it followed many of the same themes as Weste

I'd defer to someone more intimately aquatinted with Eastern Europe's pre-Soviet history, but my impression is that it followed many of the same themes as Western Europe. Which is to say the area was likely primed for democracy over hundreds of years in a similar manner. And as anthithetical as communist mono-party government is to pluralist democracy, one can certainly make the case that it can be credited with building institutions and a functioning bureaucracy. Many organs of which directly mapped to democratic equivalents, as near as I can tell. As for Iraq, absolutely agreed. And I think essentially everyone still working in foreign policy now believes de-Ba'ath-ization was a terrible mistake.