AMERICAN FOREIGN policy identifies the ongoing spread of democracy around the world as a vital national interest, seeing other democratic states as "effective partners joining with us to promote global freedom and prosperity," in the words of the 2006 National Security Strategy. But events in the last few months of 2007-in countries as different as Pakistan, Kenya and Georgia-demonstrated that the challenges in spreading democracy are different than the ones the United States confronted more than a decade ago. It is no longer a clear-cut struggle between anti-Western dictators and pro-American masses struggling to be free, nor one of helping right-minded postauthoritarian leaders move their countries toward democracy. Instead, the challenge is now how to "develop better strategies for advancing democracy in semi-authoritarian countries, when the leaders do not want further democratization"-especially when those leaders may also be pro-American in their strategic orientation.1 Trying to craft policy responses to troubling events-the street demonstrations and varying degrees of violence ranging from tear gas and rubber bullets in Georgia to political assassination and suicide bombs in Pakistan and widespread civilian casualties in Kenya-demonstrate how difficult these tasks can be.
In Pakistan, the United States had supported a clearly undemocratic leader in hopes that Pakistan would remain, or become, a valuable ally in the war on terror. As Pervez Musharraf became increasingly undemocratic and unpopular, this position became more difficult for the United States. The Pakistani parliamentary elections in February 2008 demonstrated the extent to which the Pakistani people had become tired of their leader as Musharraf's party lost badly, further demonstrating the need for the United States to rethink its policy toward that key country.
