It's been only four months since Condoleezza Rice was telling U.S. ambassadors that the White House's headline diplomatic initiative this year would be a push for democratic reform in the "greater" Middle East. The idea's not yet dead -- some version of it will still probably be rolled out at the upcoming summits of the G-8 nations and NATO. But it is far from the headlines; in fact, it has nearly been destroyed by the Bush administration's real headlines over the past few weeks.
The worst of these, the reports and photos of American human rights abuses in Iraq, were unplanned, and there's not much that the Middle East democracy advocates inside the administration can do but try to ride them out. That's what they're doing: A couple of strategy meetings last week determined that the summit initiatives, modest as they are, could and should still go forward. These include plans for U.S. and European funding for grass-roots reform movements and an invitation to Arab governments to
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