And installing a king or another autocrat is somehow less of a gamble?

/shrug take your pick

democracy at the risk of a radical islamic state but no control

or an autocratic state with control but at the risk of being "inhumane" and what not

its one of the lesser of two evils problems sometimes

OR a democracy with a strong military/judiciary that sees itself as protector of the constitution, and is willing to intervene when extremists try to break it. Like in Turkey.

OR a republic with a powerful president able to veto unconstitutional laws.

there's always another choice, Zeld.

I think a statement like "the Shiite want nothing more then a religious state" is the ultimate oversiplification. In fact I don't think the Shiite want a religious state along the lines of Iran. Those following Al Sadr are a minority of the Shiite population, but because they are armed and he is the son of a popular matyr it is hard to challenge him. I was listening to a reporter today say that most of the iraqis she talked to were happy to welcome her into their homes and were generally negative about Al-Sadr until one of his thugs came around.

This is actially exactly the same thing several of the founding fathers said about France at the time of the French revolution. And, of course, they were right, it took several decades of dictatorship, renewed monarchy, and finally another revolt before Democracy became firmly entrenched. But it happened. And I doubt anyone would claim France who have been better off without all that tumult.

Really though, I think its far to early to damn imposing democracy from the outside. Its never really been tried before (someone cited latin American countries above but for the most part those became Democracies on their own... And with the possible exception of Venezuela are democracies today, though with some bumps in between).

I appreciate your insight in this. One difference between the French Revolution and this war is that there is no general uprising. The opposition is external.

This could be a major difference, or as you pointed out, not particularly significant since external imposition of democracy hasn't really been tried before--I believe those two concepts are incompatible.

I don't know how anti-democratic the latin countries were before your time frame. I would point out, however, that in terms of their economic systems they are reverting to socialist systems in opposition to global capitalism as soon as they can. I don't know how relevant that point is, but we seem to be on the cusp of divergent movements coalescing into organized opposition to the dominant economic system that has been in place for the past few hundred years.