Pat Buchanan: Democracy, Hamas & Hezbollah

Pat Buchanan has an article on World News Daily about Democracy in the Middle East that points to the question I raised in my post about the New Yorker article on making the Democrats look tough.:

"With his enthusiasm for mass demonstrations, free elections and majority rule, President Bush has unleashed a whirlwind from which Hamas and Hezbollah may be the beneficiaries. Nor does the president seem to realize that his embrace of a political cause in the region has the effect of an endorsement by Ariel Sharon.

'Why don't they realize that once America makes a case for something, the Middle East will go in the opposite direction?' an Arab diplomat told Weisman, 'Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, but now its hand is strengthened by American opposition.'

Political causes define themselves and advance themselves by choosing the right enemies. In the 1940s, America defined herself as the implacable foe of Hitler. In the Cold War, America's enemy was communism and the 'Evil Empire.' That was moral clarity.

Unfortunately, in the Middle East, the way to advance oneself today is to have as your enemy Israel or the United States of George W. Bush. And thus does Hezbollah advance toward power in Lebanon. "

If only we had leaders in the White House who could understand this type of complex dynamic in the Middle East then maybe we would stop hurting the chances of Western-friendly Middle-Easterners and providing our enemies with more and more recruitment tools.