When Secretary of State Rice was confronted with the latest news from Harare, the decision of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from Friday’s presidential election amid a wave of regime sponsored violence, she said, “The Mugabe regime cannot be considered legitimate in the absence of a runoff.” The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, David Miliband on the BBC that day was even tougher. He said President Mugabe’s “claims to legitimacy have absolutely no basis because if anyone has legitimacy it’s the people who won the parliamentary elections and the presidential elections in March.”

These words can be given meaning only by action on the part of the community of free nations to recognize Mr. Tsvangirai as the elected, legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. His Movement for Democratic Change won the elections held on March 29. Robert Mugabe quickly moved to prevent the publishing of the official vote count, called for a re-vote, and unleashed the state’s military and police to detain, beat, torture, and kill the political opposition the dictator could not best in the polls.

Recognizing Mr. Tsvangirai as the leader of Zimbabwe could be accompanied by the expulsion of Mr. Mugabe’s diplomats from Turtle Bay to their home country. Ordinarily we’d suggest a dock at the Hague, but the United Nations tribunal is not an institution to which one wants to look for justice. Wouldn’t it be something were Secretary General Ban to invite Mr. Tsvangirai to address the General Assembly. Or to see a group of Zimbabwe’s neighbors convened to provide the opposition with the money, guns, and diplomatic cover that would be required to take back the elections Mr. Mugabe has stolen.

At this point, it’s hard to imagine what is gained by an American administration, of either party, recognizing the current regime in Harare or hosting its diplomats in Washington. This kind of diplomacy is not unprecedented. In the late 1990s, Secretary Albright met with the Kosovo Albanian government, even as Slobodan Milosevic tried and failed to cleanse the Albanians from what he considered Serbian territory.

In a phone conversation yesterday, John Prendergast, a former Clinton administration Africa hand and codirector of the Enough project aimed at ending genocide, said, “President Mugabe’s actions inside Zimbabwe over the last seven years and particularly the last few months since the elections ought to result in a stripping of his recognition as the head of state.”

So far, the rest of the world is not quite there. The reaction from the United Nations has been a plea with Mr. Mugabe to delay the vote scheduled for June 27. Meanwhile, Mr. Tsvangirai has asked for asylum in the Dutch embassy as the police raid his party headquarters and one of his top deputies sits in jail on charges of treason. He, too, is calling on the world deny any recognition of the upcoming election in which his Movement for Democratic Change can no longer participate. The better strategy would be for the democratic powers to go further and recognize the results of the March 29 elections. If the democracies cannot muster the courage to do this for Zimbabwe, what hope will there be the next time a tyrant in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East tries to counter with force the politics of his opposition?