In an interview with CBS’ Mike Wallace, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. This must be a product of internal domestic development in a society.” Putin went on to say that leaving Iraq without “establishing the grounds for a united country” would (also) be a mistake.

While there’s no reason to take tips on democracy from a former KGB agent, I think Putin is right. My gut tells me that even if we could find and capture every insurgent, and put them on a plane and fly them to say, Mississippi… the good people of Iraq could not or would not cobble together anything you and I would consider Democracy. Never gonna happen.

But in all fairness, I don’t think we could do it again either. Seriously, if we had to start from scratch today, do you think the American people could write a constitution and all the rest? Shiiit. I know I wouldn’t want to live under a government that we’d be capable of forming today. So I thank my lucky stars for our Founding Fathers and hope the government they crafted is strong enough to survive us, their descendants. Like they say, timing is everything.