Ultimately, history will judge whether President Bush and his policies have remade the Middle East.

There are signs that justify guarded optimism, but we’ve seen similar moments pass by before without significant improvement. What appears to be movement toward reform could, instead, be the rise of instability that precedes new violence and repression.

Maybe something great is happening. Maybe it’s something horrible. But something is definitely happening in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, and within the Palestinian Authority.

And President Bush and his administration deserve credit. Whether the war in Iraq was the first in a line of dominoes of falling monarchs and tyrants, it dramatically changed the nature of the Middle East

More than 8 million people braved violence to vote in Iraq. The Syrian-backed government in Lebanon has collapsed, and both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have promised election reform.

The war in Iraq has not been carried out as it should have been, and many factors have contributed to the changes in the region. There’s a long road ahead, and celebrations are premature.

But change is in the air, and the president has played a major part in that. The responsibility now is to keep working for reform.