It’s become fashionable by many on the left to suggest that democratization is responsible for the violence in the Middle East.

CFR’s Steven Cook puts that canard to rest, here.

The New Republic’s blogger Spencer Ackerman calls the “freedom agenda” a fiasco. But isn’t it terrorism and militias, rather than democracy, which are the problems in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon? There’s a big difference between criticizing agendas and their implementation. It’s one thing to be anti-Bush, but when did it become “progressive” to celebrate White House silence on the crushing of dissent in Egypt, Tunisia, and the failure to even support organized labor in Iran?