Oh, and Another Thing...

As a follow-up to my post yesterday on Hamas' overwhelming, and, I guess to the Bush administration unexpected, victory in the Palestinian elections, I think it's really important to point out that it's one thing to talk about freedom and democracy, but it's entirely another to really promote it.

King George has made a lot of speeches about the benefits of an American-style democracy, but all he's shown to the people of the middle east is violence and saber-rattling. He's done absolutely nothing to demonstrate the benefits of minority rights, openness and peaceful conflict resolution. So, all the people of the middle east see is arrogant posturing and killing of innocent people.

Moreover, the fact that the Bush administration is surprised by this result demonstrates just how out of touch they are with the realities on the ground in the Middle East. When Bush came to office, he declared a "hands-off" approach to dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, essentially scuttling the gains made by the Clinton administration, preferring to let them handle it themselves. Bush's administration has done nothing to address the corruption and ineffectiveness of the ruling Fatah party. Would holding Fatah accountable through incentive-based aid or other economic or diplomatic pressures forced our ally to clean up it's act? That's just too French for this crowd...

You can't just bomb your way to democracy - you have to understand the culture and dynamics on the ground in these countries and use all of the tools at your disposal - diplomatic, economic and military - to bring about real freedom. What we are seeing in the Palestinian territories, and what we've seen in Iraqi elections, is the fatal flaw of Bush's foreign policy in action.