Gameela Ismail said she was going to collect the ashes and deliver them to the U.S. Embassy. Ismail is the wife of Ayman Nour, who ran second to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's presidential election last year. The ashes were what was left of the Nour Cultural Center in the poor Cairo neighborhood of Bab El-Shariya, gutted by a suspicious fire on June 1. This was apparently a further act of vindictiveness by a regime that had already dispatched the diabetic Nour to five years of hard labor for challenging Mubarak.

Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik

Why did Ismail single out the American Embassy? Not out of knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Nour is as friendly to the United States as Egyptian politicians get; he is often derided in the state-controlled media as an American puppet. Rather, his wife was expressing the bitter disappointment that Egypt's democrats feel over the apparent waning of the Bush administration's ardor for their cause.

Last year U.S. pressure impelled Mubarak to hold Egypt's first presidential election. U.S. pressure also led to a relaxation of constraints on freedom of speech, press and assembly that began to change the quality of public life in Egypt. Given this momentum, it was expected that Mubarak, once reelected, would allow further liberalization. Instead, 2006 has brought a wave of repression and brutality that goes beyond the jailing of Nour. The regime's goons have bloodied and arrested peaceful protesters doing nothing more than expressing solidarity with the dignified protests of Egypt's judges. Spurred by the persecution of its leaders for exposing election irregularities, the extraordinary judges' movement has sprung to the forefront of agitation for reform.

In response to these abuses, U.S. press spokesmen have issued formulaic criticisms, and Nour's conviction on patently bogus charges led Washington to postpone trade talks. But the mild tone of U.S. protests, the low level at which most have been delivered and the admixture of warm gestures toward the regime--such as the meetings Vice President Cheney and other top officials held with Mubarak's son and hoped-for heir, Gamal, last month--have combined to create the impression that the Bush administration has begun to pull its punches on Middle East democracy.

It's not only in Egypt that the administration is giving this impression. In Iraq, it has acted to shut down dozens of projects designed to nurture the seedlings of democracy: civil society, political parties, women's and human rights organizations, and the like. They had been initiated over the past few years through special allocations to the National Endowment for Democracy; the international democracy-building institutes of the Democratic and Republican parties, the AFL-CIO and chambers of commerce; and several similar organizations--all of which constitute the core apparatus through which America works to promote democracy globally. In the supplemental appropriation bill just enacted, the administration sought to eliminate these funds until a Senate amendment partly restored them.

The motive for this action is hard to fathom. Perhaps it was more the result of turf battles than a decision to downgrade democratization. But even this would only show how far democracy has slipped in priority.

The muted response to Mubarak's depredations is more decipherable. Clearly, the strong electoral performances of Hamas in Palestine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have sown worry about the consequences of democratization. The dilemma is that Middle Eastern liberals usually spring from the educated elite and have little resonance at the grass roots, while Islamists command substantial popular appeal.

But this makes our actions toward Egypt all the more foolhardy, for the victims of today's repression represent a possible alternative to both the Islamists and the regime. Alone among Egypt's liberal politicians, Nour has demonstrated a populist touch. He also matched the Islamists' tactic of furnishing social services to poor constituents. That was the purpose of the center in Bab El-Shariya, now destroyed.

The judges may present an even more potent "third force." In voting for leadership of the "Judges Club," the professional syndicate of the judiciary, reformers crushed the pro-Mubarak slate. Their top demand is judicial independence from executive interference. This alone would be an enormous step toward democracy. But they also call for free speech, other human rights and clean elections, and some have gone so far as to stage sit-ins and hunger strikes.

Although judges are by definition part of the elite, they are deeply respected by the common Egyptian, even the humble peasant, in a way that intellectuals and politicians rarely are. The rebellion by Egypt's judges is pregnant with the promise of political change. This explains why the Mubarak regime has been so eager to repress it. And it makes inexplicable the halfhearted way in which the Bush administration has responded.

Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at AEI.