Cowboy and Indians: President Bush could yet fulfill his liberation fantasy. The secret is to start small.

THE ROUND REJECTION of John McCain indicates that George W. Bush's nation-building fell far short of the Sharansky ideal. The prospects for christening the Shining City on the Hindu Kush by Jan. 20, 2009--or Jan. 20 of any year--seem less than promising.

Granted, a let's-do-it-while-we-can attack on Iran would provide visceral release in certain quarters, but Iran is a nation already built and notably uneager to be rebuilt. Odds are that an assault on Tehran would be another one for the boondoggle column--a poor nostrum for the most fragile legacy since James Buchanan's.

Yet if we stay the course for another few weeks, GWB will forever be known as the failed nation-builder--the cowboy who rode into town, shot it up, and left. He needs one last riposte to balance things out.

While democracy is said to rest on universal principles, thus far President Bush's beau ideal has involved force-feeding freedom to recalcitrant Muslims. For one willing to challenge paradigms on the quick, however, a new frontier exists. The limitless mystery of the Amazon offers the nation-builder's equivalent of 72 virgins.

Deep within the Peruvian rainforest, the crew of an NBC reality show recently discovered a lost Indian tribe. These Indians--the Jururei--present Mr. Bush with perfect opportunity to add a solid win to his democratization score sheet.

We know little of the Jururei, but what we have learned is chilling. Far from passing the Town Square Test, these fierce people are wholly undemocratic. The tribe's current leadership commits human-rights violations against their own people, neighboring tribes, and even the Western loggers introducing modernity from atop bulldozers.

The Jururei are led by one Sopai, a thuggish Amazonian headman. French anthropologists report that Sopai did not earn his leadership through free and fair elections, but seized power by cudgeling his predecessor to death. The common Jururei--fundamentally decent monkey trappers and tuber gatherers--are utterly disenfranchised.

When encamped, the peripatetic tribe resides within a single roundhouse called a shabono, in which deep divisions exist. While all Jururei adhere to the same basic form of animism, a schism has arisen between the majority, which holds the traditional belief that departed ancestors return as birds, and a minority that believes they become howler monkeys. Sopai, a fervent traditionalist, has excluded the minority faith from the tribal council and has ordered them to sleep on the jungle side of the shabono, where they fall prey to snakes and panthers.

Sopai's oppression of his people doesn't end with religious minorities. In this Amazonian human-rights crisis, women and sexual minorities fare no better. Previous headmen, bending to domestic pressure, permitted women to assume lucrative roles in hunting parties. Sopai immediately banned this practice. For the few women who retain hunter privileges, a thatched ceiling exists: on average, they keep just 68 percent of the monkey meat their male counterparts do. Western apologists for tyranny argue that women retain power within the tribe's matrilocal family units. But such revisionism doesn't conceal the ugly fact that Sopai's all-male clique wields absolute political power.

Due to medical limitations, the tribe does not yet have any transgender members, and the mere suspicion of homosexuality results in immediate spearing. But it is Sopai's contempt for the sovereignty of neighboring tribes, the property rights of international logging companies, and his threats to wipe Peru off the map that trigger the alarm bells of freedom. The case for intervention is mounting:

* UN observers recently witnessed Jururei warriors, on the pretext of pursuing a particularly agile monkey, attacking a neighboring tribe, burning down its shabono, plundering its tuber reserves, and carrying off four women.

* A Peruvian logger hit by a Jururei poison dart died last week in a Lima hospital. DoD is testing the dart and is expected to deem it a banned biological weapon.

* Human Rights Watch is set to release a report calling Jururei aggression an "existential crisis for Sopai's neighbors."

With each passing day of inaction, Sopai is emboldened in his belief that the West will do nothing to check his regional ambitions. Shown a picture of Barbara Bush by a visiting CNN crew he proclaimed, "I will spear her."

Enemies of Freedom are already making overtures. Previously, Jururei political alliances were seasonal pacts made only with other lost tribes. Unnamed sources at the U.S. embassy in Caracas report that Hugo Chavez sent a private expression of solidarity to Sopai. And Cuban dissidents claim that the Castro brothers will bestow an honorary generalship on Sopai during a speech at Plaza de la Revolucion.

Israeli intelligence reports that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dispatched Al Quds operatives to transfer IED technology from Caracas junkyards to the Jururei. This terror is hampered solely by Sopai's beliefs that only avian deities residing in storm clouds can create loud booms.

With decisive leadership, it is not too late to stem this evil tide, even with less than two months to spare. Each full moon, Sopai is said to binge on a potion of fermented plantains mixed with the droppings of a colorful local frog. Following a nocturnal hallucinatory frenzy, he assumes a stuporous repose throughout the next day. It is then that the Forces of Freedom must strike.

A few casually tossed grenades will suffice for Shock and Awe. Given tribal superstitions regarding loud noises and bright lights, only the deadenders will continue to hold their spears as the invasion begins.

While it's always nice to employ a smart bomb with a live camera feed, collateral damage concerns--shabonos are highly combustible--dictate that removing Sopai will require boots on the ground, but deliciously few. No stretching combat brigades for this cakewalk. A company of Marines or a few SUVs of Blackwater men can handle the liberation.

Before the first sun sets on the invasion, the Green Zone--a large, inexpensive tent--will be functional, though given the surrounding foliage a new name will be needed. Deviously placed snare traps aside, the danger from insurgency will be de minimis. Assuming we sever the Iranian link, there will be no RPGs or roadside bombs. Looters, who we now know cannot be wished away, will be shot.

The first order of business in the transitional period will be to wire the shabono for Internet and satellite TV. All charges and fees will be waived for the first year, including adult pay-per-view. The wonderment of the images piped into the roundhouse will keep the Jururei at home and jumpstart democratization.

Lest the deadenders convince the common Jururei that we offer nothing more than a savory but poisoned berry, a properly indoctrinated replacement for Sopai is needed. The elder son of the headman toppled by Sopai reportedly wandered into a logging camp in August and, enthralled by his first sip of Peruvian rum, stuck around. He is being named in private circles as the likely successor, and the American Enterprise Institute is co-ordinating efforts to buy his freedom.

The unfolding Jururei crisis thus presents President Bush with a prime opportunity to apply what we learned in our trillion-dollar nation-building lesson. There will be challenges. Anthropologists warn that the body politic of the Jururei may vanish into the jungle. Surviving hunting party members may be reluctant to turn over spears and bows. We'll face a shortage of translators and other cultural barriers. But Mr. Bush will find no better chance to show Mr. Obama that the key is not to abandon nation-building. You just have to start small and work your way up.

Paul Moreland is the pen name of an immigration lawyer in New York City.