> we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to elect a representative government, it is not our place to complain about the representatives they elected. T

> we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to elect a representative government, it is not our place to complain about the representatives they elected. The USA insisted on representative government within those countries’ existing borders. So much of the strife in those countries is ethnic-based. If regions were given options for secession, then some of the new territorial formations that resulted may well have become more politically stable. Just look at how much better off Iraqi Kurdistan is, which is as close as it can get to independence, than the rest of Iraq.