Once upon a time, in what seems to be a different world, the U.S. actually engaged in political warfare. Whether it was in the 1950s, when the CIA supported Christian Democratic parties in Europe, or in the 1980s, when the CIA helped to supply Solidarity, the U.S. used covert action to promote our political interests—in that case, helping to topple Communism. Since the end of the Cold War, political warfare has largely morphed into more toothless “democracy promotion.” The result is what we see today in Egypt. As Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin reports:

U.S. assistance to Egypt is helping political parties of all ideologies prepare for the upcoming elections — even Islamic parties that may have anti-Western agendas.

“We don’t do party support. What we do is party training…. And we do it to whoever comes,” William Taylor, the State Department’s director of its new office for Middle East Transitions, said in a briefing with reporters today. “Sometimes, Islamist parties show up, sometimes they don’t. But it has been provided on a nonpartisan basis, not to individual parties.”

This is noble, selfless—and utterly daft. Why are we helping anti-American parties? So that we can preserve a reputation for fairness? Surely Islamists will give us no credit for our help; more likely it will only increase their contempt for us—they will decide we are too stupid to know who our enemies are. Instead of helping all sides, we should be helping our side—both covertly and overtly. Other actors—whether Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Iran—are not shy about picking horses in the political process; we need to do the same if we are to shape the Arab Spring into a movement that will flower into full democracy.