Leading Republican "realists," another important source of support for the McCain campaign, have left no doubt about their unhappiness with the idea. It has become one focus of their competition for influence with the neoconservatives.
Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to former Presidents Ford and Bush, wrote in the journal the National Interest last year that it was a "bad idea" to create a new bloc in global affairs that would divide the world "between the good and the evil."
McCain often insists that he does not advocate replacing the U.N. But a group that moves vigorously on the issues he has identified easily could erode the U.N.'s importance, analysts argue.
Despite the concern, some experienced diplomats wonder how much such a group could actually accomplish.
James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat who served as the Bush administration's special envoy on Afghanistan, said there would be competing voices within an organization of democracies, and that in some ways it might be easier to get the U.N. to act than a new organization. The U.N., he pointed out, allows just five members to veto action, whereas a new group would come under pressure to give every country a veto.
Dobbins, who directs the Rand International Security and Defense Policy Center, said he favored bringing together countries of shared democratic values but thought such a group had a "limited range of possibilities."
McCain on April 11 suggested to reporters that he found European leaders receptive to his idea when he visited there last month. He said his proposal was "being talked about" by such figures as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But in interviews, European officials were cautious. Many made it clear that McCain's idea would fare better in their countries if he envisions it as an informal group, like the European-American alliance exerting diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to end its uranium enrichment program.
The proposal "can appear as something divisive," said one senior European official, who insisted on anonymity under traditional diplomatic rules.
A senior British official said that although Brown had developed an agenda for reforming international institutions, McCain's concept "doesn't fit in our plans."
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paul.richter@latimes.com
Times staff writers Maeve Reston and Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.
