Greg Lebedev’s editorial in yesterday’s Washington Times urges us to do just that.  As chairman of the Center for International Private Enterprise, one of the four chief recipients of grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, Lebedev is in a unique position to comment on the Bush Administration’s democracy promotion agenda. 

While I’m not sure I agree with Lebedev’s predictions that an extreme backlash to the failures of Bush’s freedom agenda is on the horizon that could result in closing the doors on US democracy promotion efforts, it’s hard to disagree with his assertion that our failure in Iraq and other highly “conspicuous” foreign policy failures will lead to a major retooling of US foreign policy, including democracy promotion, in the near future.  My hope is that our policymakers will see the continued value in promoting freedom around the world, even in the face of such glaring failures, but in the meantime, “Don’t Give Up on Democracy!”