Suddenly it all makes sense

Doug Saunders points out one of the consequences of the disastrous attempt to justify invading Iraq in terms of democracy:

“During the Bush years, many governments understandably lost their enthusiasm for democratization,” he explained. Both the rhetoric and the policy of democracy promotion became associated with U.S. excesses. Now, Mr. Youngs says, “there’s a disappointment in that they have not returned to the agenda after Obama has taken office … It’s slipped down the agenda.”

We now talk about stability, or containment, or conflict prevention. Because the word was abused so violently by Mr. Bush, it may be a generation before democracy returns to that list.

Anybody else wonder whether the Cons have learned just enough from their U.S. cousins' mistakes to set up the concept of "women's rights" for failure in Afghanistan?