Underlying Western political discourse in general, on the universalent side of things (be in neocon or liberal or whatever) is the unspoken assumption that "democracy" and "democratic values" of the sort with which such people identify is the default mode of humanity, and all you have to do is get rid of external circumstances that are supposedly suppressing it ("dictators" or whatever) and it will instantly reassert itself.
[WS:] Yep. There is also a "designer approach" to social problems, a belief that all one needs to do is to make a certain set of policy choices to achieve pre-determined policy outcomes. This was a common trait of otherwise strange bedfellows: Soviet-era revolutionaries, Western communists, and neo-liberal reformers.
I think that a more reasonable view is that democracy was a unique outcome of a unique set of political circumstances limited to a handful of Western countries, and thus nearly impossible to replicate. Stated differently, democracy was a historical accident of the 19th century, a product of the industrial revolution, British hegemony, the fragmented power structure in most European countries, the specific nature of international relations, as well as unique histories (especially the significance of the urban classes, merchants, guilds, etc.) A far more frequent outcome is some form of autocracy (cf. Giullermo O'Donnel's writings on modernization and bureaucratic authoritarianism.)
That is to say, it is quite possible that in a few hundred years democracy will all but disappear and live only in people's memories in the same way that the Athenian polis or the Khmer Angkor lives in ours - as an intriguing but closed chapter of history.
Wojtek