BAHRAIN: At the height of the cold war, it was fairly standard US policy to turn a blind eye to the failings of particular autocratic and oppressive regimes on the basis that they were allies in the cold war. The American approach could be summed up as: "He may be a sonofabitch, but at least he's our sonofabitch." Now that the cold war is over and the US is the only superpower, there can be no excuse for overlooking the repressive policies of authoritarian regimes simply because they are America's allies.
This would not only be morally wrong but also foolish and unwise. Most of the hijackers of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia and there is a plausible argument that the lack of freedom and democracy in that country helped generate the frustration and anger that ultimately led them to Ground Zero.
At the G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, last year, George Bush set out a vision of reform in the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) region. "The people of the Broader Middle East yearn for democratic change, and their leaders understand and support the need for reform," he proclaimed.
A key vehicle for this transformation was meant to be the "Forum for the Future", a gathering of G8 and Middle East countries which would inaugurate the new dispensation. The first forum was held in Rabat, Morocco, last December and the second took place over the weekend in Bahrain.
State Department officials accompanying Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted significant change was brewing. For the first time, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were sitting in the same room and taking part in the same discussions as Middle East governments. A process had begun and, after all, democracy came from the ground upward; you could not impose it.
There was a different message from the amiable Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. "All the changes we have seen through the world really have come by external effects," he told me. Zebari was certainly correct in the case of Saddam Hussein.
One of the NGO participants, Egyptian journalist and human rights activist Bahey El Din Hassan, provided a chilling chronicle of Middle East repression, including routine and systematic torture, bloody suppression of demonstrations and violent harassment of journalists. Listeners at his press conference could be under no illusion about the magnitude of the task ahead.
But the forum failed to agree on a final statement. The organisers had naively touted the "Bahrain Declaration" in advance, forgetting that nothing is simple in this tragic and tormented part of the world.
The key point of disagreement, with the US and Egypt going head to head, was the question of control. The forum set up a "Foundation for the Future" with a promised $50 million in funding to assist the reform efforts of the NGOs, as well as a separate mechanism to promote new business ventures. But Egypt and others wished to ensure that the foundation's funds were confined to organisations that were legally-registered in their own countries.
Meanwhile, there is a debate among Middle East dissidents as to whether they should accept funds and assistance from the foundation at all, in the light of US policy on Iraq and the Palestinians. Some of them, at least, are prepared to take the US at its word.
But faced with such opposition, will the Americans stay the course? In that context, it was ominous that Dr Rice sat in the audience and not on the platform for the final press conference, leaving Britain's Jack Straw to pick up the pieces as best he could.