The first round of Haiti's three-time postponed elections are now rescheduled for Feb. 7. If they are held this time, it is still not clear whether they will be the step away from chaos that the country needs -- or just one more milestone on a trail of hopelessness.

The state of play on Haiti's part of an island that it shares with the Dominican Republic is not encouraging. The interim Haitian government is blaming everyone except itself for the three postponements: It is the fault of the United Nations, the fault of the Organization of American States, the fault of the United States that elections have not been held to choose a successor to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Mr. Aristide, a former Catholic priest, resigned the presidency and fled the country in 2004 to avoid being caught and killed by mobs in Port-au-Prince who held him responsible for the miserable state of affairs he had brought about as president. He took shelter first in the Central African Republic, then in South Africa, then nearer at hand in Jamaica. He also turned very quickly from gratitude to the United States for pulling him out of the fire and saving his life to accusing America of having removed him from Haiti for political reasons.

Even though Mr. Aristide will not be a candidate in the elections -- perhaps a mistake -- he still nourishes vivid ambitions to return as president. His followers are an important element in the disorder in Haiti that threatens to torpedo the election effort once again.

Just what state of disorder prevails in Haiti was illustrated earlier this month when Gen. Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian commander of the United Nations' 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti, apparently committed suicide.

He had been ordered to send his troops, who have been trying to provide sufficient security for the elections, into a particularly violent quarter of Port-au-Prince to retake it from gang control. He resisted the order, fearful of the loss of troops and civilian population that would result; when overruled, he took his life.

What needs to be done? It is hard to say, given the endemic failure of efforts by some Haitians, various international organizations such as the United Nations and the OAS, and the United States to bring peace and stability to the country. It is worth noting that Haiti ranks dead last in Latin America in terms of per capita income; its economy is almost entirely ruined.

It is also worth noting that the United States has to pay some attention to what happens there. Apart from the embarrassment of persistent disaster in a country to which America has paid much military, economic and political attention for many years, there is the fact that trouble in Haiti, with a population of 8 million, can easily turn into floods of attempted immigrants to the United States, arriving in Florida, only 750 miles away from Haiti's coast.