Washington ? In a time of Middle Eastern turmoil that calls for giants of spirit and of vision, the region is afflicted with pygmies who cannot see beyond their own immediate interests. They capitulate to moral obtuseness shaped by decades of conflict and corruption.

The Bush administration more by circumstance than design has come to a giant-sized ambition for the region: Washington now anchors its plans for the removal of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and for the creation of an independent, responsible Palestinian state in an American commitment to promoting democracy in the Middle East. That noble goal justifies the expenditure of American treasure, effort and perhaps lives in the region.

This is progress in at least one way: President Bush and his advisers implicitly acknowledge that the removals of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat are necessary but not sufficient conditions for stabilizing the Middle East. What and who follows them is vital to American interests. It must not be left to chance. I would add: It must not be left to the pygmies, either.

The administration cannot rely on local leaders who show no commitment to democratic change to be the instruments of that change. Nor can it rely on a now-discredited peace process alone to overcome the political hatreds and cultural backlash that roil the region. Only a level and clarity of American commitment to democratic change that forces choices upon reluctant partners who cannot see beyond today will calm an ever-more-deadly conflict.

We are not there. President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have yet to demonstrate they can agree with each other on the hows and whens of achieving peace in the Middle East. They seem to follow rather than to lead when they deal with Israel’s Ariel Sharon, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah and their colleagues.

In that confused atmosphere, meetings about meetings have proliferated and replaced action. Arab rulers travel to the White House every few weeks to plead with Bush to do something that will chase images of Israeli-Palestinian slaughter off the television screens of the Arab world. The dream of evasion not of democracy or a better life for their subjects is the goal of the autocratic dynasties of the Arab world.

Israel meanwhile sinks deeper into an understandable but dangerous rage about suicide bombers and their glorification in Palestinian society. Israel’s military establishment “is angry in a way that it has never been angry before, in any previous war,” Israel’s premier defense analyst, Zeev Schiff, says with open concern. “The result is that when the location of the head of the military wing of Hamas becomes known, the decision not to let him slip away” by dropping a 1-ton bomb in a crowded Gaza area “is made, whatever the consequences.” It becomes a technical matter decided by munitions experts.

Down this road lies greater loss of control and greater disaster. Washington cannot simply wait until the time is right for action against Saddam Hussein or until Arafat keels over. Only pygmy-sized visions are coming from America’s traditional partners in the region. These leaders must be challenged rather than comforted or coddled.

This is particularly true of the Arab regimes that receive special treatment from Washington but do not even offer lip service to Bush’s stated goals.

Egypt’s sclerotic government has been raking in more than $2 billion a year in U.S. economic aid for two decades and wasting much of it. The regime demonstrated its growing anti-democratic drift with the sentencing this week of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democracy advocate and a dual Egyptian-American citizen, to seven years in jail on trumped-up charges. Bush cannot simultaneously ignore this outrage, enlist Egypt to help clean up the Palestinian Authority and champion democracy in the Middle East. He must choose, and make Egypt choose.

The administration will also have the opportunity in mid-August to offer open support for Palestinian and Iraqi groups that are committed to democratic change rather than to autocracy as usual. A meeting of anti-Saddam organizations in Washington should showcase and offer support to Iraqis such as Ahmed Chalabi who have fought for democracy rather than for power.

The State Department should also push for the inclusion of grass-roots Palestinian organizations, such as Omar Karsou’s Democracy in Palestine, at the scheduled Aug. 19 conference of international donors of economic aid for Palestine. Breaking the monopoly that Arafat’s corrupt Palestinian Authority has established on aid funds is a key step to reform that dares speak its name.