The trend is clear: in the Middle East and throughout the world, freedom ison the march - George W. Bush, March 5 2005

When the US president uttered these words less than two years ago, the assertion followed a heady few months for his democratic agenda. Ukraine was basking in the afterglow of its Orange Revolution; Iraqis had voted in their first free poll in decades; and the demonstrations in Lebanon that followed the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, former prime minister, were in the process of forcing Syria to withdraw its troops from the country. Optimism seemed only natural.