BY THE scratchy standards of American politics, Democrats and Republicans left their differences at the water's edge as Barack Obama picked his careful way through his Egypt conundrum this week. The administration had handled the situation “pretty well”, said John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. Anyway, why pick new fights when there is such fun to be had raking over old ones?

From the moment it became clear that something big was under way in Egypt, it was inevitable that America would relitigate the case of George Bush and Iraq. As Egyptians thronged the streets, Mr Bush's defenders flocked into print to argue that the Arabs' newly evident hunger for democracy vindicated the former president's “freedom agenda” in the Middle East. Did not Mr Bush topple Saddam Hussein, a far more monstrous dictator than Hosni Mubarak? Did he not try his best to push America's authoritarian allies to move towards democracy?

Mr Bush was indeed a far more active champion of democracy than Mr Obama has been. In 2005 his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, gave a startling speech in Cairo in which she said that having spent 60 years pursuing stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East, and achieving neither, America was henceforth supporting the democratic aspirations of all people. True to its word, the Bush administration nagged, scolded, bribed and bullied its allies towards greater democracy. The Americans leant on Egypt to hold more open elections in 2005, and in 2006 they talked an astonished Israel into letting Hamas contest Palestinian elections in the occupied territories. Even the Saudis were prevailed on to hold some (men only) local elections. All this was based on a particular theory, the post-9/11 neoconservative conclusion that the root cause of terrorism was the absence of Arab democracy. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” said Mr Bush.

Why revisit this history now? Because with people-power bursting out all over the Arab world, the experts who scoffed at Mr Bush for thinking that Arabs wanted and were ready for democracy on the Western model are suddenly looking less clever—and Mr Bush's simple and rather wonderful notion that Arabs want, deserve and are capable of democracy is looking rather wise. In pursuit of this simple idea he was willing, up to a point, to discombobulate long-standing American allies whose autocratic behaviour at home America had long forgiven or overlooked in the interests of realpolitik.

Compare that, say Mr Bush's defenders, to what came next. Barack Obama entered office eager to “engage” America's enemies and repair relations with Islam. So keen was he on engagement that he gave only tepid support to 2009's “green revolution” in Iran, which the regime went on to crush. As for mending relations with Islam, Mr Obama decided that this required some diffidence. So his own big speech in Cairo stressed that America “does not presume to know what is best for everyone.”

That lack of presumption, the neocons now say, was a grave mistake. It gave the dictators a free pass and put America on the wrong side of the barricades in Tahrir Square. Elliott Abrams, who was a senior adviser to Mr Bush, argues that Mr Obama's misguided fixation on peacemaking in Palestine made him forget about the millions suffering under the boot of the Arab dictators.

So Mr Bush is vindicated? Not so fast. Yes, those who mocked his belief in the Arab appetite for democracy were wrong; he is to be admired for championing reform and nudging autocrats towards pluralism. But keep things in proportion. The big thing Mr Bush did in the Arab world was not to argue for an election here or a loosening of controls there. It was to send an army to conquer Iraq. Nothing that has happened in Tunisia or Egypt makes the consequences of that decision any less calamitous.

The war poisoned the Arabs' reaction to everything America later said or did. Iraq is now a fragile democracy, but precious few Arabs (and rather few Europeans) believe that Mr Bush invaded Iraq for democracy's sake. Many think the non-existent weapons of mass destruction were a pretext, too. In Cairo in 2009 Lexington met a pro-reform academic, Nader Fergany, still seething six years on. “The Americans are the Mongols of the 21st century,” he said, “and now Barack Obama is trying to put the icing on this dirty cake.” Whatever they think of the freedom message, most Arabs utterly reject the messenger.

Please be free, but continue to love us

Besides, even without Iraq, Mr Bush's freedom agenda had its flaws. The chief of these was that Mr Bush wanted Arab democracy on the cheap. That is to say, he wanted Arab leaders to empower their people but at the same time to protect America's strategic interests. That put a limit on how far he dared to push the reliable old autocrats. And, knowing this, the reliable old autocrats thought all they needed to do to stay safely on their perches was to wait Mr Bush out. Moreover, towards the end of his presidency, Mr Bush himself got cold feet. The electoral victories of Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in Lebanon presented him with democracy's foreseeable but unwelcome corollary, to wit that Arabs granted the gift of freedom might plump ungratefully at the ballot box for America's bitter enemies.

That possibility now faces Mr Obama as the old order in Egypt changes. What if the new one eventually delivers the greatest of the Arab nations into the patient hands of a hostile Muslim Brotherhood? That fear gives even some neocons pause. And such questions will continue to plague America for as long as it aspires to be both a superpower and a champion of democracy and self-determination. It is a riddle to which neither Mr Bush nor Mr Obama nor any president has found a neat answer.





Economist.com/blogs/lexington