One of the many stated goals of American intervention in Iraq held up by knee-jerk supporters of the Imperium when the whole WMD thing kind of went to s**t was, of course, the arrogant holding up of ink-stained thumbs (and a bunch of fat-cat m****r f****rs who never did two minutes of public service of any kind, let alone military service, holding up “purple heart band-aids”) because “we were bringing democracy to the Middle East.”
After our… reluctance to embrace the Islamist regime elected in Iraq or the Hamas led government in the Palestinian territories, and with Egypt reversing earlier promises to open up democratic channels by cracking down… it appears that our grand ambitions of bringing democracy to the Middle East are going a tad unsatisfied.
I recall somewhere way back when the President was asked how he would react if the Iraqis decided to elect an Islamist party or parties (presumably closely aligned with arch-current-bogey-nation Iran), he responded “that’ll never happen,” or something to that effect.
There were those of us who were appalled at the combination of arrogance in bringing “democracy” to another nation at gunpoint and utter cluelessness about how people in such a circumstance would react. The answer is, they reacted exactly the same way Americans did when pressed with purportedly existential threats: they voted not merely jingoistically, but tribally. In Iraq’s case, they voted for parties they felt would most likely keep them alive against their enemies. In Palestine, Hamas had a somewhat better record of providing social services than the hopelessly corrupt Fatah movement, but Palestinians also voted for the toughest m*****r f****rs on the block when it came to dealing with Israelis, even if not apparently in their self interests to do so. But this is precisely what Americans did in 2004: polls showed that most Americans agreed more with John Kerry than George W. Bush on virtually all issues but one… but the one concerned existential security.
Needless to say, it should come as no surprise, as a result of our own nation’s unilateral actions in Iraq, we have destablized the region (not to mention brought all kinds of bad s**t upon the Iraqi people) that the people in that region, given a choice, would go immediately for something they think of as most likely to provide some level of security above any other interests.
As I said: the people of the United States did so. Why should we assume any other group of people, when given the choice, wouldn’t do the same? It’s amazing that the Bush team could figure out what would happen here well enough to win an election, but somehow had no idea it would happen anywhere else… just amazing.
tdog
Yes, but I have a plan.