Say You Want a Revolution

By Peter Ackerman and Michael Ledeen, Peter Ackerman is chairman of the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. Michael Ledeen is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

In recent months, skepticism about the appeal of freedom has given way to a new belief: that democratic revolution is now possible, even inevitable, in places such as Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Kyrgyzstan. But "people power" is not an unstoppable tidal wave, and it would be wrong and naive to conclude that we need only step back and let it happen. The Western world has a lot at stake, and our support for democratic forces in the Middle East and beyond will be important, perhaps even decisive.