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These are difficult days for those who believe that the promotion of democracy should be a key element of American foreign policy. From Russia to Thailand to Ukraine to Kenya, elections have been cancelled or marred by violence, democratic governments have fallen into paralysis, and autocratic regimes have risen to power. The situation in the Middle East, which in 2003 seemed ripe for a wave of democratic change, is now thought to be particularly discouraging. The promise of the 2005 Cedar Revolution in Lebanon has dissipated amid continued Syrian meddling and Lebanese factionalism. Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election has lent force to the argument that promoting democracy in the region—the focal point of the Bush Doctrine—would lead not to the replacement of oppressive regimes by representative governments but to the triumph of Islamic radicalism.

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