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Sir, I think this raises some really great questions. I don't think it's fair to say that democracy has failed to take hold in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to me both states are in the process of democratizing. After all, there have been elections in both and there are standing governments. The process and foundations of democracy take a long time to instill within a state. Western democracies had the benefit of a gradual, almost evolutionary movement towards democracy. This movement was combined with economic and cultural changes, as well. All of this is tough to duplicate in a short period of time.
As for the rhetoric about democracy, it seems a lot of this comes straight from the Democractic Peace Theory. To subscribers of DPT, promotion of democracy directly equates to promotion of peace, because democracies will be less likely to go to war with each other. Of course, I wonder how much the data is skewed because most democracies are concentrated in a single area of the world and very interwoven and similar cultural backgrounds.
All this being said, the US has seen some significant success in establishing democracies in the past. Japan, Korea and Germany have done pretty well for themselves since WWII and the Korean War. To improve on regime change and democracy growth in the future, I think these could provide some excellent case studies. So, too, should studies of how states like Russia and China worked/are working their transitions.
The regime change option, however, is something that, ideally, doesn't have to be used much. The best way to encourage democracy is with all the elements of power (DIME model or whatever its current acronymn is). Soft power in the form of MTV and CNN et al can do a great job influencing a population to want change. Right now, we're terrible at this. The US has done a really bad job with information operations in both states which has significantly hampered progress.
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