The current governments of Iraq and Afghanistan are reasonably democratically elected.

The government of Iraq did, in fact, say "no" to the presence of US troops, which is why they all left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_U.S._troops_from...

The much smaller recent bolstering of US troops in Iraq was also by invitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_I...

Whether or not it would be a great idea for Afghanistan to tell all UN troops to book it is a different question. But at the end of the day, they have not asked that.

I know they are, but come on... the US civil administrator ("Vice King") Paul Bremer sacked the Iraqi army and banned all Baath party members from jobs. Most publicly employed people of rank were members, that was just a necessity to keep the job.

So, you destroy the security apparatus, leave almost a million weapons trained without an income for their families and sack most competent civil administrators.

This was basically telling the Shia majority to get even with the Sunnis. 15 years later, the resentment is cemented and Isil is using it to their advantage.

Yes, technically a democracy but large parts of the populace cannot vote because they're under Sharia rule.

Thanks, Paul.

By the way, that's a war crime. An occupier has the obligation to keep order. When the military was sacked, looting became widespread. The US forces had no orders to keep the peace, but just looked on. It's a miracle Iraq works at all today.

> The current governments of Iraq and Afghanistan are reasonably democratically elected.

Not by any means. The US vetoed all candidates they didn't like. That's as un-democratic as it gets.