George W. Bush wants Americans and the world to believe that the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime two months ago represented a defeat for tyranny and a victory for liberty. No one has devoted more words to framing regime change in Iraq in these terms than the president.

In the debate leading up to the war, Mr. Bush and his administration focused primarily on Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and the threat they posed to the US to justify military action. After military victory, however, Bush has emphasized the larger objective of promoting liberty in Iraq and the greater Middle East, especially because the search for weapons of mass destruction has produced such limited results. This mission statement for Iraq echoes convictions Bush stressed in every major foreign policy speech given since Sept. 11.

The president, however, has one big problem in pursuing this foreign-policy agenda. Few believe he is serious. Around the world, many see an imperial power using its military might to secure oil and replace anti-American dictators with pro-American dictators.

At home, isolationists in both the Republican and Democratic parties shudder at the folly of another Wilsonian mission to make the world safe for democracy.

Both at home and abroad, observers of Bush's foreign policy are confused by the mixed messages it sends. Was the war against Iraq undertaken to eliminate weapons of mass destruction or to spread liberty?

Bush faces an even more daunting challenge in making his commitment to democracy-promotion credible - the perception of hypocrisy. Bush has shown more concern for bringing freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq than to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

If Bush is truly committed to a foreign-policy doctrine of liberty-promotion, none of these criticisms is insurmountable. But they must be addressed. Especially now, with end of war in Iraq, what Bush says and does will define the true contours of his foreign-policy doctrine. Is it a liberty doctrine? Or does the language of liberty camouflage ulterior motives?

We will know that Bush is serious about promoting liberty if he credibly commits to four important tasks.

First, and most obviously, he must devote intellectual energy and financial resources to securing new regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that, if not full-blown democracies, at least show the potential for democratization over time. To date, the record of achievement in both places is spotty. Bush has to keep these two countries at the top of his agenda, making regime construction as important as regime destruction. If democratizing regimes do not take hold in these countries, then Bush has no credibility in promoting liberty elsewhere.

Second, if Bush is serious about his stated mission, then he must give more attention to developing, funding, and legitimating the nonmilitary tools for promoting political liberalization abroad. The Marines cannot be used to promote democratic regime change in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, or Uzbekistan. Wilson had his 14 points and Truman his Marshall Plan. Kennedy created the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps. Reagan started the hugely successful National Endowment for Democracy. Bush needs to lend his name to similar grand initiatives.

Third, in future speeches, Bush must flesh out the next phase of his liberty doctrine by explaining his priorities. Even the most powerful country in the world cannot bring liberty to every person living under tyranny all at once. But the president does owe the American people and the world a clearer game plan. It is no accident that Bush has given top priority to promoting democratic regime change in places where autocratic regimes were also enemies of the US. Fine, but what principles guide the next moves? There are also countries in which the promotion of political liberalization at this time could actually lead to less freedom, not more. What are the criteria being used to identify such places? To win supporters to his mission, Bush must present a rationale for the next phase of democracy promotion.

Fourth, even if the US does not have the capacity to promote freedom everywhere all the time, the president can make his commitment to liberty more credible if he develops a consistent message about his foreign-policy objectives, no matter what the setting. Words matter. Advocates of democracy living under dictatorship can be inspired by words of support from an American president. They can also become frustrated and despondent when the American president refrains from echoing his liberty doctrine when visiting their country. For instance, Bush's failure to speak openly about democratic erosion on his recent visit to Russia was a big disappointment to Russian democrats.

Some will always believe that the US is just another imperial power, not unlike the old Soviet Union, Britain, France, or Rome, exploiting military power for material gains. But for others of us who want to believe that the US has a nobler mission in the world, we are waiting on the president to give us signs of a long-term credible commitment to promoting liberty abroad.

For supporters of democracy, there is nothing more exciting or memorable than the fall of another dictator. The construction of a new political system, however, is a much more ambiguous process. The French still commemorate the storming of the Bastille, but the consolidation of democracy afterward took decades. Russian democrats at one point celebrated August 1991 as the month Soviet communism collapsed, but they stopped having parties later in the decade, when democracy's arrival still seemed far away. Navigating the gap between the fall of the old order and the formation of the new order is always difficult; it's especially dangerous when extremist movements and ideologies are added to the mix.

Iraq has it all: ethnic and religious divides, foreign troops, and returning exiles and revolutionaries ready to step in with an alternative vision for how to organize Iraqi state and society when those who first take power fail. Although Germany, Japan and France in 1945, or Haiti and the Balkans in the 1990s, have become the analogous regime changes of choice for many Western analysts, we would do well to add France in 1789, Russia in 1917 and 1991, Iran in 1979 or Afghanistan in the early 1990s as other historical metaphors that may help us understand Iraq today. These revolutionary situations shared several characteristics after the fall of the old order.

First, the collapse of the old regime left a vacuum of state power. The anarchy, looting and interruption of state services that we see in Iraq are predictable consequences of regime change. Second, after the fall of the dictator, expectations about "life after the dictator" exploded. People who have been oppressed for decades want to benefit from the new order immediately. The urgent and angry questions last week from Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader now back in Iraq, about why the Americans have not provided more relief faster is typical. The first leaders after the departure of the king in France, the czar in Russia or the communists in Eastern Europe knew Chalabi's situation well. Paradoxically, society's expectations inflate at precisely the same moment when the state is least prepared to meet them. Third, the coalition that opposed the dictatorship dissolved. While the dictator was still in power, this united front embraced one ideology of opposition -- "anti-king," "anti-czar," "anti-shah" or "anti-communist." In doing so, these coalitions consisted of economic, political, ethnic and religious forces with radically different visions for their country after regime change. Unity ended after the dictator fell. In Russia, Bolsheviks and liberals in 1917 and nationalists and democrats in 1991 went their separate ways. In Iran in 1979, Islamic leftists, liberals and militant clerics celebrated their shared goal of removing the shah. Just a few years after the collapse of the old order, many of the coalition partners who brought down the shah were out of power or in jail. Soon after the Soviet puppet regime in Afghanistan fell, the anti-Soviet coalition forces were killing each other.

The Iraqi opposition today consists of exiled liberals and generals, Kurdish nationalists, Shiite and Sunni clerics, Islamic fundamentalists, a smattering of monarchists and the unknown local leaders throughout the country who have quietly provided comfort to opponents and passive resistance to Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime. From other regime changes, we should assume that this united front against Hussein will no longer be united after Hussein. The combination of a weak state, soaring expectations in society and factional fighting in the anti-authoritarian coalition gives rise to two dangerous "solutions." One is restoration. Living in anarchy, people want order. Who can provide order most quickly? Those who previously provided order. How can order be provided most quickly? By deploying the same methods used before. For both American officials governing Iraq and the Iraqi people, the temptation to settle for a new regime led by new leaders with autocratic proclivities grafted onto old state structures from Hussein's regime will be great.

But there is another, more sinister solution that can also gain appeal: the victory of the extremists. The end of dictatorship is a euphoric but ephemeral moment. When the new, interim government does not meet popular expectations, the radicals offer up an alternative vision to construct a new political (and often social) order. It is amazing and frightening how often they win. In February 1917 the end of Russian czarism seemed to create propitious conditions for constitutional democracy. Less than a year later, the Bolsheviks had seized power. In 1979 the first provisional government in Iran contained many prominent leftist intellectuals and even some liberals. No one today, however, remembers Mehdi Bazargan or Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, while everyone knows the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the radical cleric who pushed these others aside to dictate his vision for Iran. The Taliban seized control in Afghanistan to end the years of anarchy after the collapse of the old order there.

In Iraq, this threat from revolutionaries -- that is, the terrorist wing of Islamic fundamentalism inspired by Osama bin Laden -- is now latent and below the radar screen, but real. For devotees of this world perspective, Iraq offers a ripe opportunity. Not only is the old state gone and expectations high, but the only authority in the country is, in their revolutionary discourse, an imperial occupying force of infidels. Vladimir Lenin and Khomeini would have drooled over such propitious conditions for revolution.

The third path between restoration and revolution is a long and bumpy one. Liberal, moderate grass-roots movements from below always take more time to emerge and consolidate than the autocratic forces of either restoration or revolution. To succeed in Iraq, they will need their U.S. allies for the long haul. Premature departure guarantees thugs in power at best and Osama bin Laden supporters at worst.

The writer is a Hoover fellow and professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.