In Eric Flint's Alternate History/SF book 1632 covering the time of the thirty years war there is an excellent description of democratic nation building that, I think, applies very strongly to what we are seeing in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.
.... Such is the whirlwind which brings new societies onto the historical stage. Forging a nation does not happen in a test tube. It happens in the real world, sweeping real people into the political arena for the first time, bringing with them all the accumulated baggage of centuries. Turbulent, chaotic, confused—messy.
So be it. Mike was not dismayed. Not in the least. A basket full of puppies is messy too. Which is simply nature's way of saying: Alive and well.
* * *
Even the new political structure was messy. Half-formed, half-shaped, a thing of big paws and big ears and precious little in the way of real flesh. ...
Thanks to the sanity of Jim Baen and Eric the entire book is online so I can not only quote it but point readers to the paragraph and suggest that people read the rest of the book too if they are interested in the challenges of nation-building during a war.
No functioning nation in the world, not even the mighty USA, has sprung into being fully formed like the godess Athena from the brow of Zeus. Quite a lot of non-functioning nations were formed this way though. Most of them have, at some point sooner or later and usually sooner, had some kind of civil war or seccession or other strife as the strait-jacket of the founding constitution turns out to be rather less suitable to one chunk of the population than another. It is probably better to get the disagreements out in the open so that the resulting compromises between the various factions are clear to all the citizens and so that the citizens can provide feedback so that unacceptable compromises or power-grabs by one group or another are nipped in the bud.
Compare the process in Iraq with the collapse of the prospective United States of Europe as the population shows its disgust with the constitution that was foisted upon it from on high.