In the right direction.

• Author: Bremmer, Ian
• Position: Presidential legacy, George W. Bush

GEORGE W. BUSH has staked his presidential legacy (and a whole lot more) on a bid to create democracy in Iraq, the centerpiece of his "freedom agenda." But he has made two crucial mistakes. He has raised unreasonably high expectations among Americans for the success of this monumentally complex undertaking, and he has failed to level with the American people about the true cost in blood and resources that such an effort would require. More than three-and-one-half years into the conflict, the president has lost most of the public confidence he enjoyed in 2003.

American presidents have made similar mistakes before--and not so long ago. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Clinton Administration officials embarked on a plan to help shepherd the new Russia through "shock therapy" and a series of open elections toward free-market democracy. Expectations for success were high. But a considered long-term U.S. commitment to Russian democratization simply did not exist. Troops were not needed as they are in Iraq. But substantial political and financial support were required--and not forthcoming.

So many of the early visuals were (deceptively) encouraging. Exuberant crowds toppled Saddam's statues and American tanks rolled seemingly unimpeded through the streets of Saddam's capital. And then there were the ink-stained fingers of Iraqis who had braved a variety of threats to exercise their newly acquired right to vote.

But democracy and the open society needed to nourish it requires more than the ouster of the dictator and the holding of peaceful elections. It demands the steady, long-term development of governing institutions that are independent of one another, which trump the power of the country's dominant political personalities and which earn the faith of its citizens.

To build democracy in a state with little or no democratic history is the work of decades--and it can't be done on the cheap. To invest considerable human, political and financial capital in support of the construction of democracy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, as if national elections and good police work will create an inexpensive and self-sustaining momentum toward stable political pluralism, is foolhardy.

But 17 years on from the giddy celebrations atop the Berlin Wall, democracy itself has lost some of its luster. After several years of political, economic and social turmoil in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, large numbers of exhausted voters have opted for stability--with the greater promise of democracy deferred until their governments have inspired greater confidence in official competence. Think of this transition as Yeltsin atop the tank to Putin atop the "security vertical."

To understand why this is so, consider the relationship between a state's stability and its "openness." A country's stability is a measure of its government's capacity to implement policy in the event of a political, social or economic crisis. Openness is a measure of the degree to which people, ideas, information, goods and services flow freely in both directions across the state's borders and within the state itself.

Some countries--Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom or Brazil--are stable precisely because they are open. Commercial, intellectual and social interactions across borders render their cultures and economies ever more dynamic. Other states, such as North Korea, Iran or Cuba, remain stable only so long as they remain closed and isolated.

Now imagine a graph on which the vertical axis measures stability...