Analysis: Hamas Victory a Message for Bush

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060126/ap_...w_IE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
After making democracy a defining marker for American foreign policy, President Bush got a jolting message from Palestinian voters: Be careful what you wish for.

The United States promoted the democratic Palestinian election that now has produced an upset victory for the militant Islamic group Hamas. The election could install an organization the United States considers terrorist in place of a Palestinian leadership that, while weak, was pledged to work with Israel and with Washington.

The administration is caught between Bush's clarion rhetoric about spreading liberty even in unlikely places and the reality that self-determination can yield results that appear counter to U.S. interests. That's a challenge the United States may have to confront someday in other places as well, including Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia, the Balkans and ? closer to home ? South America.

"We in the United States have got to get used to the idea that other countries are going to have changes, and they may not be ones that" traditional Western thinking can readily grasp, said Council on Foreign Relations Mideast expert Judith Kipper.

Faced with the fruits of the democratic Palestinian vote he helped nurture, Bush made clear he was displeased.

"A political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal," he said Thursday, hours after the extent of the Hamas victory came clear.



So.
Is the Bush mid-east peace plan, the so-called Road Map, dead? Yes.
Has the Bush mid-east policies encouraged extremism in both Iraq and the West Bank? Yes.
Has Bush failed spectaculary once again? Yes.
And how will he spin his way of this fiasco? Can't wait to see.


-----------------------------------------------------
Let us use the existing thread on this subject of Hamas

Mod

 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
You have no idea the long term ramifications of this election. To say you do is foolish. Hamas could decide to play ball and actually do something great for their people and work with the Israelis. Or they could become a state sponserer of terrorist activities.