Kerry:

Kerry, too, envisions a freer and more democratic Middle East. But he flatly rejects the premise of viral democracy, particularly when the virus is introduced at gunpoint. ''In this administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic, easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,'' he told me. Kerry disagreed. ''You can't impose it on people,'' he said. ''You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You have to nurture the process.''

... versus reality; democracies introduced at gunpoint:

• Germany
• Japan
• France
• Italy
• Austria
• South Korea
• Nicaragua
• Afghanistan (as of Saturday)

And to a less direct degree, we might also say that Russia's (before Putin) and Eastern Europe's democracy was introduced under the missle-cone of a nuclear weapon.

I'm not saying this is ideal. But it seems that many former enemies were turned into democracies at the point of the gun, and Kerry's statement is grossly ignorant of that historical fact.