Can democracy be exported? America seems determined to do it. Our interest in creating a democratic Iraq is not a new venture. We have in the past 10 years tried to bring democracy to Haiti, and failed, and to Panama, with only modest gains, and to Afghanistan, where the results are not in yet. We have been part of an effort to bring it to Bosnia and Kosovo, with uncertain effects. In the past half-century we did bring democracy to Germany and Japan.

But Germany had had some experience with democracy in the Weimar era and Japan was willing to follow its emperor, who decided that he would follow General MacArthur's lead and endorse democratic rule. These were great successes, but they do not obviously set a pattern that we can easily duplicate in the Middle East.

In an earlier era democracy was exported to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The principles of democratic rule were acquired from Britain. But to convert them into effective democratic governance required a lot of hard work, some extraordinary leadership, a shared political culture and good luck.

The American colonies fought a war against British rule and, when the time came to write a constitution for the republic, they went to great lengths to make certain that the national government in Washington was a good deal weaker than the one in London. It was so much weaker that when the powerful states that made up our nation disagreed about slavery, we fought a civil war.

But democracy alone cannot be the goal of foreign policy, since we can have either good democracies that respect human rights or bad ones that promote the tyranny of the majority.

The problem we face in Iraq is not to create a democracy but to expand freedom.

Of course, freedom is aided by democracy, but a lot of freedom can be obtained without the kind of democracy we find in America or Britain. By democracy I mean a regime in which rulers are selected by free elections. By freedom I mean personal liberty. A liberal regime is one that does not keep the heel of the ruler on the necks of the people. It may be authoritarian, but it is not totalitarian.

But freedom, though more valuable than democracy alone, is itself not enough.

Freedom must be combined with security. Too much liberty and there is no security; too much security and there is no liberty.

Nations differ more, I suspect, in the amount of freedom they bestow than in the degree of democracy they display. If in 1914 you had to choose which European nation in which to live, you probably would have picked a reasonably free nation.

But in 1914 Europe had only three democracies. By the end of the First World War that number had grown to 13, but by the time of the Second World War it had declined again as Germany and Italy became authoritarian.

Since 1950 the number has grown significantly, as Portugal, Spain and most of the former satellites of the old Soviet Union have become democratic.

Given this slow and uneven progress, does it make any sense to expect to create a democracy in Iraq or almost anywhere else in the Middle East? I am not certain.

Only Israel and Turkey have democratic regimes in that region. Israel's was imported from Europe and Turkey's is the result of a half-century of slow change that began with the authoritarian rule of Ataturk.

There are several reasonably free places in Muslim countries today. Indonesia, Tunisia and Turkey are three examples, and there is some evidence that Morocco has taken steps in that direction.

Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria vary in the extent to which human liberties are denied, but in general they have done little, if anything, to enhance them. At best, they have prevented mass murder within their borders, a claim that cannot be made for many African regimes.

The problem faced by Muslim nations is in part because Islam admits of no distinction between religion and the state. Nowhere in the Koran is there a statement akin to the instruction by Jesus that we should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's while rendering to God the things that are His. Jesus was, after all, a prophet executed by the Roman government, whereas Muhammad was not only a prophet but a ruler who governed a state and headed an army.

Nations with a Muslim population differ greatly in how they apply religious teaching. But wherever the Islamic religion is powerful, there is little opportunity for a liberal regime.

The problem, though, is deeper than religion. Most of Africa and Asia and all of Latin America are free of a Muslim culture, but liberalism has made only slow progress.

One of the reasons is that a democratic regime requires a democratic culture, and such a culture grows rather slowly. England devoted more than 500 years to applying the principles in Magna Carta before much resembling a modern democracy began to emerge.

Almost all of the earliest democracies were, with respect to ruling classes, ethnically homogeneous at the time that their governing principles were set forth in common law, charters and constitutions.

Ethnic homogeneity ought not to be the goal of a free or democratic state, but when a democracy is founded it is much easier if the great majority of its members have a common outlook. And even then it is not easy.

The conflicts between tribes in much of Africa have greatly slowed the growth of liberal regimes there. How can one group tolerate a different group if, as with most human communities, the people are attracted to similarities and repelled by differences?

Nobody knows what will happen in Iraq. It will take some effort to keep it as one country, not three if the Kurds and the Sunnis should decide to defect. It will take even more effort to make it a democracy. This is not impossible, and President George W Bush is right to make that the ultimate goal for the nation. However, in the near term, what we most want is to keep it out of the hands of a military dictator or an extremist mullah.

I think that can be done, but it will not be done quickly or cheaply.

James Q. Wilson is the chairman of the Council of Academic Advisers at AEI.