REMEMBER THE “Arab Spring”? That ephemeral blip of, oh, six or seven weeks last February and March when scattered Bush critics second-guessed their opposition to the Iraq war and the president’s Mideast-democracy project? Given that most Americans now deem the war a mistake, it’s easy to forget that, only 9 months ago, conservatives and liberals alike were hailing George W. Bush as the 400-pound gorilla of a nascent transformation in Arab politics.

Those were heady days for the administration. During the infant stages of Beirut’s “Cedar Revolution,” Lebanese Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt–hardly a pro-American stooge–remarked that the January 30th Iraqi elections had torn down a “Berlin Wall” of autarkic sclerosis and midwifed “a new Arab world.” Spurred by the killing of their popular prime minister, thousands of Lebanese took to the streets in an astounding spectacle. The stock character in Jumblatt’s “new Arab world” was a youthful demonstrator baying for responsive governance. Lebanon’s Assad-backed puppet soon resigned, and Syria’s occupying troops began packing their bags. Meanwhile, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president-for-life, sanctioned multi-party elections, Iraqi crowds gathered to denounce terrorism, and notable swathes of Palestinians rebuked the Arafat-linked kleptocrats running their affairs.