After the fall of the Ching Dynasty, the Republic of China (RoC) emerged. However it was riven by internal strife. Much of the early years was spent fighting the various warlords. After the death RoCs founder Sun Yat-Sun, he was succeeded by Chiang Kai Shek aka Generalissimo. He spent much of his time building up the Chinese army and fighting other warlords and the Communists. It was effectively strongman politics. Sun Yat-Sun and Chiang Kai Shek were not elected, so in a sense, similar to Communists. Chiang was aligned with the West. Mao with the Soviets. An interesting bit of trivia is that the crack Chinese units were trained by the Germans. They gave a good account in the Battle for Shanghai, although their strength was depleted after that. This is why some Chinese officers used the Mauser C96 aka Broomhandle pistol.
The Iraq War did not end quickly because the U.S. Government specifically the State and Defense Departments did not have a clear exit strategy. Following civil unrest in Iraq as well as increasing attacks on U.S. soldiers and the newly formed Iraqi Government the U.S. Government was unable to withdraw quickly and suffered large casualties and expended hundreds of billions of dollars in resources.
In muslim society social groups were based on religion