The Problem With Democracy

The problem with democracy is that not everyone thinks the way you do.  For the United States, in the Near and Middle East, that means that sometimes the nations obtaining some form of democracy will want to do things differently from how they were done in the past—old ways that we found congenial.

Here is a note from Night Watch on Egypt and Hamas (toward the bottom of this web page).

Egypt:  The Supreme Military Council and Foreign Ministry have discussed opening offices for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Cairo, similar to the offices of Fatah for the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, several news services reported.  A delegation from Hamas will visit Cairo to discuss the idea at a later date.

Comment:  Under Mubarak, Egypt never permitted Hamas to have representation on an equal footing with the Palestinian Authority, which has international stature.  The interim Egyptian administration, which has not been elected or approved in a democratic referendum, is acting as if it has a mandate to craft a new foreign policy that moves Egypt out of the pro-US camp, politically, and more towards the anti-Israel camp, led by Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

I do think that the interim Egyptian authority is responding to what it thinks the People of Egypt want.  The complicating thing is that a disturbance in the political balance that is Near East could result in war and the death of hundreds of thousands.  It could draw the United States in, one way or another.

These are the kinds of things that test one's adherence to the idea that individual nations should have the right to pick their own path.  They test the idea that others deserve democracy as much as we do—the right of the locals to make their own decisions.

Regards  —  Cliff