Flawed Arguments, Part I

This truly has me scratching my head. The president is saying on the one hand that any premature withdrawal from Iraq will create the world's worst terrorist state, and on the other hand he is saying we have to stay and help this young democracy. On the surface that seems reasonable enough; who wouldn't want democracy instead of a terrorist state? But while I agree that premature withdrawal is not a sane option (I will have more to say on this later), I'm disturbed by the logic here; if he really believes that American military might is the only thing keeping Iraq from becoming a terrorist state, then he is a) tacitly admitting that his administration's pre-war assumptions about post-war Iraq truly were as wrong as they could possibly have been, and b) acknowledging Iraq's own utter helplessness in creating a democracy. How then are we to believe the prevailing "conservative" wisdom that Iraq can be a beacon of democracy in the heart of the Middle East, emboldening the supposedly pro-American people of places like Iran? This argument doesn't add up: if Iraq cannot build a democracy without a long-term American military presence, why should we believe that places like Iran can? I hear guys like this one on NPR saying Iran is ripe for democracy, but I see no compelling proof; just lots of wishful thinking. Frankly, I'm a jaded man when it comes to any form of optimism about that part of the world, which I have unfortunately seen firsthand (twice). If the people of Iran or anywhere else want democracy, why should they need any help or encouragement from us if that's really what they want? Rise up, depose your tyrants, and proclaim yourselves a democracy if that's really what you want, by God. Where is that good old-fashioned, self-help, do-it-yourself conservative philosophy we used to preach? Why doesn't it apply to our foreign policy, where suddenly conservative values like prudence and realism have become bad words, cynically derided as "defeatist"?