THE NEWEST GAZA TRAGEDY (and how it will affect the United States)

June 25, 2007 - The Israelis didn't want Palestinian elections back in January 2006. Mahmoud Abbas as early as the spring of 2005, had warned American officials that he did not have the popular support to disarm Hamas. But Bush administration officials insisted, thinking that democracy would cure any doubts. Later, after Hamas stunned the world by winning control of the Palestinian Parliament in a DEMOCRATIC election, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed: "Nobody saw it coming." Again.

George W. Bush's efforts to transform the world has proven time and time again that interference in the internal affairs of foreign, sovereign governments is ineffective and disastrous. America was again seen to be taking sides. Hamas, under pressure, built up its own paramilitary forces to counter those controlled by Abbas (and trained by the United States). Then, last week, as killings in Gaza spiraled out of control, the Hamas fighters in Gaza turned out to be far more fierce than their American backed opponents. The result: Hamas is now in charge of Gaza, packed with 1.4 million desperately poor Palestinians. In the Palestinian territories, Washington simply rejected the DEMOCRATIC election results.

The violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas is not just a death knell for Israeli-Palestinian peace, it has become a disaster and created killing fields of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.

Condoleeza Rice said that establishing the idea of a "two-state solution" in Palestine was one of her proudest achievements. That "achievement" has now disappeared.

Hard-liners in Washington never fully understood that using military power to "impose" democracy on peoples who were not ready to seize it for themselves has historically been a disaster.

The next American president will have to grapple with a Middle East that is more resentful and angrier than before 9/11. Bush is coming to acknowledge this fact and Condoleezza Rice, in her NEWSWEEK interview, acknowledged that the administration had scaled down its hopes for "transformational" policy (a euphemism for imperialism) and stated that "We're laying the foundations for someone else to succeed in the future, and I think that's fine."

Right now, success is very far away and the mess Bush continues to create in the Middle East, increases the retaliation threat to the United States.