Quote of the Day: "Freedom is crawling — over broken glass."

That pessimistic quote - no doubt to the chagrin of the Bush administration - came from an anonymous State Department official, in stark contrast to President Bush's frequent contention that "freedom is on the march" in the Middle East.

Indeed, in spite of Bush's militaristic approach to forcing democracy on the Middle East, many countries actually are gravitating more closely toward Islamist-controlled governments. If you think about it, it's kind of like independent-minded teens who rebel against their parents (not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea). Many in the Middle East want nothing to do with the United States' presumptuous approach to how Middle Easterners should be governed. Even if many in the Middle East might prefer the democratic approach, as many likely would, that doesn't mean that they want others - in particular, the "holier than thou" Americans - telling them what to do.

President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to the Middle East have strengthened Islamists across the region, posing fresh challenges for the United States, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and democracy experts.

Islamist parties trounced secular opponents in recent elections in Iraq and Egypt.

Hamas, the armed Islamic Palestinian group, appears set to fare well in Palestinian parliamentary elections Jan. 25, posing a quandary for how the United States and Israel pursue peace efforts. Hamas has carried out suicide bombings against Israel and calls for the country's destruction.

In Lebanon, the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah is part of the government for the first time.

Washington considers Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which have Iranian support, to be terrorist groups.

"In the short run, the big windfall winners ... have been the Islamists," said Michael McFaul, a Stanford University expert on democracy and development.

In the long run, democracy probably will lead to a more stable, economically flourishing Middle East, McFaul recently told a Washington conference. But, he added, "We're taking a chance."

Democracy isn't something that can be forced on others, especially those who are already suspicious of - or even downright hostile toward - anything that is espoused by the United States' government. Let's face it, in spite of what Bush, Cheney and company would like to believe, the U.S. doesn't have a good reputation in much of the world. And attempting to force something upon them isn't going to help matters much. In fact, it very likely is making things worse.

In a region renowned for governments dominated by religion and competing ethnic tribes for hundreds if not thousands of years, to force a radical, overnight change to something as foreign as democracy is nothing but a fantasy. And turning such a fantasy into reality will not come without an unbearable price - or wait - for decades, if not centuries, to come.

Perhaps the United States should try a different tack, like benevolence and diplomacy perhaps? Unfortunately, both concepts are about as foreign to the Bush administration as democracy is to those in the Middle East. Until we have a more astute administration in place, the gulf between fantasy and reality will remain virtually unbridgeable.