Israel, The Ugly

And finally, the extremely ugly.

As Israel discredits one Palestinian governing body after another, they find that the groups that replace them are...worse than the ones before. We don't like Arafat, so we press him to put Abu Mazen in power. Abu Mazen is too weak to control the terrorist elements of Fatah, so we press for popular elections. The people elect Hamas, who the Americans promptly freeze out of any discussions whatsoever.

So now, brilliantly, we have driven the Palestinians into the arms of...Al Qaeda. This is fantastic. It seems like the Bush administration policy, ever since achieving moderate success in Afghanistan, has been to make the entire rest of the world a safer, more friendly place for the one group of people who really wants to harm Americans, and has shown the ability to do it in the past.

It's quite amazing how, if you tell people to make a choice, then tell them 'oh wait, no, you didn't choose who we wanted you to, so we're going to take all your money away', they develop a 'fuck you and the horse you rode in on' attitude towards you. Call it the 'No Shit, Sherlock' corollary. And, in place after place around the world, we are demonstrating it.

For better or worse, the Middle East is going to be problematic for a long time. A necessary first step to ending this state of affairs is going to be reducing the general level of pissed-offedness towards the US and Israel there. And, for the last 6 years at least, we've been pointing firmly in the wrong direction.