In a few weeks, many of the 6,000 American troops sent to Haiti last September to restore democracy will turn over their duties to the United Nations. The U.S. intervention has been largely devoid of the violence so many had feared and is clearly a success in that regard.
But serious questions and concerns about the creation of a democratic Haitian state haven't yet been satisfactorily answered.When military thugs ousted elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide three years ago, the resulting abuses of human rights eventually led U.S. troops into the island - but only after a series of embarrassing setbacks when the military junta thumbed its collective nose at the Americans.
The leaders of the junta eventually were negotiated out of the country in the face of a Washington invasion threat and the subsequent American occupation has been peaceful. An exiled Aristide returned to office under the protection of U.S. forces.
One unanswered question is whether former Haitian soldiers will retrieve their hidden guns once the Americans are gone and once again pose a threat to Aristide's rule.
A second worry is almost the opposite of the first. Some observers regard Aristide as arrogant and no real friend of democracy, despite his lip service to the subject.
They fear that Aristide will use his immense popularity among the Haitian populace to gradually impose a form of one-man rule - a different kind of dictatorship than the military junta, but a dictatorship nonetheless.
Scheduled elections for some 2,000 legislative and municipal posts have been repeatedly delayed and are now set for June 4. Parliamentary elections were supposed to be held in December, with the old parliament being dissolved in early February.
The December vote was never held, but Aristide dissolved parliament on schedule, leaving him to rule virtually alone.
He has illegally replaced legitimate judges with his own "revolutionary" friends. In violation of the Haitian constitution, he has reduced the army from 7,000 to 1,500 men and dismissed all army officers above the rank of major, appointing his own security chief as ranking officer.
Political opponents of Aristide say they have suffered acts of intimidation, including beatings, and claim they are largely shut out of access to the government-run media.
None of this sounds every encouraging. Washington needs to pay close attention to Haiti and use the leverage from economic aid packages to make sure that Haiti hasn't merely exchanged one kind of despot for another who hides behind the facade of democracy.