Why did the Orange revolution in Ukraine succeed in ousting the government there, while the Tiananmen Square uprising in Communist China was crushed? And which way will hopes for democracy in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan go?

We ponder those questions amid the recent reports from Beirut and Bishkek, which aren’t encouraging for those engaged with the cause of freedom. In Beirut, as Hedieh Mirahmadi of the American Enterprise Institute reports on the opposite page, a supporter of the Syrian-backed government pulled a knife and cut the ear of an oppositionist at Beirut Arab University. In Bishkek, reports the Associated Press’s Bagila Bukharbayeva, riot police locked arms “to force some 100 demonstrators out of the central square. Police detained 20-30 people, dragging some away.”

The danger is that the revolutions in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan will go the way of the one in China that was crushed by communist tanks. A young revolution is like a campfire that has just been started. The dictator is waiting with a bucket of water to douse it. And it could flicker out on its own if it isn’t fed with more fuel.

That is where America comes in. The Orange Revolution didn’t just happen on its own – it was nursed and stoked by American groups like Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy. These and a few other groups have developed a capacity to train protest organizers in tactics drawn from the Eastern European anti-communist revolutions and from the American activist Saul Alinsky. They can help teach organizers how to decrease their chances of being shot at and how best to communicate with the public. They can provide things as basic as photocopiers and fax machines, or printing presses and training for newspapers not controlled by the dictators.

Right now, the sums that America devotes to this sort of assistance to prodemocracy groups are miniscule. Compared to the costs of defending against terrorism spawned in a place like Lebanon, or against the price of a military action, such activities are a bargain. They can even be undertaken privately by outfits such as George Soros’s Open Society Institute or by American labor unions – the American Federation of Teachers under the leadership of Albert Shanker supported the Solidarity movement in Poland.

But this is a moment for America to seize enthusiastically. The crushing of the protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 set back hopes for democracy and freedom in mainland China for nearly a generation. The crushing by Saddam Hussein of an uprising by Iraqi Shiites in 1991 after the first Gulf War cost Iraqis more than a decade of freedom and meant that America had to fight another war to oust Saddam.

The flames of freedom now are flickering in both Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan. In Lebanon, the neighboring Syrian dictatorship will use every means possible – from car bombs to slicing ears – to put out the fire. It is afraid that the flames of freedom will spread to Damascus. In Kyrgyzstan, the dictator who has ruled since it was a Soviet republic has the support of Moscow in cracking down on the opposition. Will America stand back, uttering words of support but failing to act? Or will it step up help to the forces of freedom?