Rinse. Repeat.

So, OK, speaking of Caribbean islands as emblems of our commitment to promoting democracy …

The United States is currently entangled in a years-long — perhaps decades-long — nation-building experiment in Iraq. The theory being tested in this real-life laboratory is that it is possible to liberate a country from tyranny by invading it, overthrowing its government, occupying it militarily and then helping it grow into a self-reliant democracy.

Proponents of this theory acknowledge that such an invasion and occupation will be violent, and that most of the cost of this violence will be borne by the very people they are meant to liberate. But, hey, broken eggs and omelets, you know?

The people of Haiti have seen this sort of thing tried before. More than once. And they've lost their taste for omelets.

During the 20th century, more Haitian administrations were installed by invading armies than took office after a legitimate election. The nation-building tactics currently being employed in Iraq aren't much different from the cyclical history of 20th-century Haiti: invade, occupy, install, rinse, repeat.

If such methods were generally effective, Haiti would be a model of democracy and prosperity by now.

It's not. In fact, it's in much, much worse shape than most countries that did not have the benefit of these repeated efforts at violent nation-building.

The parallel, of course, is not exact. Iraq and Haiti are very different in many important ways. Most of these differences, however, suggest that military nation-building in Iraq will be even more difficult than it has been in Haiti.