Is Iraqi democracy made in Washington?

Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker wonders if Bush (and/or his people) didn't try to manipulate the Iraqi election earlier this year. Like all of Hersh's work, it's a fascinating and persuasive read, but I'm just not sure if I buy it all. Have a look yourselves, and, if possible, leave your comments here. I'm curious to know what you all think of it. Here's a key passage:

By the late spring of 2004, according to officials in the State Department, Congress, and the United Nations, the Bush Administration was engaged in a debate over the very issue that [C.P.A. senior advisor Larry] Diamond had warned about: providing direct support to Allawi and other parties seen as close to the United States and hostile to Iran. Allawi, who had spent decades in exile and worked both for Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat and for Western intelligence agencies, lacked strong popular appeal. The goal, according to several former intelligence and military officials, was not to achieve outright victory for Allawi—such an outcome would not be possible or credible, given the strength of the pro-Iranian Shiite religious parties—but to minimize the religious Shiites’ political influence. The Administration hoped to keep Allawi as a major figure in a coalition government, and to do so his party needed a respectable share of the vote.

If true, there's yet more ammunition for Bush's critics. But here's the perplexing question: Even if it's all true, does it matter?

Which is to say, doesn't democracy need some "direction" to get it going? Machiavelli understood that republics don't form ex nihilo, that a republic needs a strong and virtuous prince to set up its modes and orders before it can maintain itself through self-government. Indeed, one wonders what would have happened if American democracy had been so open and transparent back in the 1770s and 1780s.

After all, English democracy has taken centuries to develop into what it is today, from the Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution through the establishment of liberalism in the 19th century. Did we really expect Iraq to become democratic so soon and without anything in the way of American intervention? We may object to what Bush did and to how he did it, not to mention to what's going on today, but let's not be so naive.

(Thanks to Laura Rozen at War and Piece for the tip -- see here.)