Spreading democracy

Boy, this is working out well:

Iran Hard-Liner Calls For Unity After Vote
President-Elect Vows to Make Country a 'Role Model'
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 26, 2005

A Western diplomat stationed in Tehran said the replacement of President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government by a hard-line administration would stiffen Iran's position.

"If the regime decided to change its position while he's president, it would make it more palatable to the hard-liners," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the diplomacy. "But it dramatically reduces the likelihood that they would settle -- on nuclear issues, on relations with the United States, or on a host of things."

"I'm depressed," said Azar Mia, a professor of French at Tehran Polytechnic University, who had supported the reform movement. "All of the reform programs of the last eight years are vanished now. We have gone back to the Middle Ages, perhaps earlier."

Somehow I don't think that when Bush extols "democracy" in the Middle East, he's thinking about democratically-elected leaders who call for downward redistribution of wealth.