Thursday, January 26, 2006
Be Careful What You Wish For: The Hamas Edition
The Bush administration has developed quite a fetish for spreading democracy, especially after they discovered no WMDs in Iraq. The central thesis seems to be that the Middle East is ripe for democracy and democracy in one country will lead to a domino effect where one country after another will fall into the folds of democracy, which it is assumed will have a pro-American tilt. Well, it kinda worked in Lebanon, but the elections in Iraq Iran threw up a little surprise in the form of Ahmadinejad, he who seems to have no control over what he says in public. The icing on the democracy cake though has been the election results in the Palestinian election where Hamas has swept Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party out of power, winning 76 of 132 seats.
Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, and rightly so. Trouble is Hamas will have to be considered in any peace negotiations from now on, something that is absolute anathema for both the U.S. and Israel. In fact, the U.S. has threatened in the past to cut of all aid to Palestine if Hamas won, something that will be an even worse outcome since aid is what props up the Palestinian economy. Does this mean the peace process is buried? Heaven knows, but this would be a good time for the manicheans in the Bush administration to ask themselves if their little white/black world could use a few shades of grey as well.
Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, and rightly so. Trouble is Hamas will have to be considered in any peace negotiations from now on, something that is absolute anathema for both the U.S. and Israel. In fact, the U.S. has threatened in the past to cut of all aid to Palestine if Hamas won, something that will be an even worse outcome since aid is what props up the Palestinian economy. Does this mean the peace process is buried? Heaven knows, but this would be a good time for the manicheans in the Bush administration to ask themselves if their little white/black world could use a few shades of grey as well.
