Free Republic

By stigmatising organisations such as Hizbullah, Hamas, there is no longer necessity to respect their constituencies, democratic mandates Lee Marsden Published: 09.21.06, 16:59 Today, the United States’ campaign to reshape the Middle East is an unmitigated disaster. The ambitious project to create a democratic region has resulted in the deaths of over seventy thousand people, mainly civilians, in the Middle East and beyond. Recent democratic elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Israel have resulted in more rather than less violence. For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this may be the acceptable “birth pangs of democracy” but for...