One of my eternal frustrations is imposing the Iraq experience onto Taiwan. In Iraq, America f'ed up. We went in and tore down a dictatorship because we believed that peace and democracy were these easy things that spring out of the ground once you take the tyrant out.

But that is not how it works. Societies marred by decades of tyranny, with no real native experience with pluralism, securing liberties, and integration with the liberal world don't change because you impose anarchy on them at the point of the gun.

There is a lesson there, and even a lesson for how we think about the regime in Beijing. But it obviously doesn't apply to Taiwan.

The Taiwanese spent fifty years moving from dictatorship to a democratic system. They *already* did that. They are *already* integrated into the liberal world. They *already* protect the freedoms of the peoples who live there.

Taiwan is not about the hubris of straddling the globe to remake it in our image. It is not about *changing* any society at all. The Taiwanese are *already free.* The real question is if they can be *kept free.*

Now you can make the sort of cold geopolitical calculation here: "Helping Taiwan just isn't worth the cost. China is too powerful to risk conflict with." Fine. Make that argument! But these dodges about "not learning the lessons of Bush" and all that are just *dumb.*