NEWSWEEK Cover: Why Gaza Matters

The Most Chaotic, Violent and Fractionalized Countries in the Middle East

are the Ones U.S. Urged to Hold Elections

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki says, 'The Timetables Given, Sometimes I Do Not

Find Them in President Bush's Mind so Much as They are in the Minds of Some

People Who Make [Public] Statements'

    NEW YORK, June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- This has been a bad week for
 President Bush's freedom agenda in the Middle East. Between the continued
 violence in Iraq and the Hamas-lead violence that has broken out in Gaza,
 America's hopes for bringing peace to the Middle East are waning.
     (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070616/CLSA011 )
     The violence that has rocked Gaza over the last week has left Hamas
 fighters in control of the 140-square-mile strip and it may now become
 Hamas's private enclave and perhaps even an ungovernable font of terror. In
 the June 25 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 18), Senior
 Editor Michael Hirsh states that the defeat of the secular and more
 moderate Fatah forces could, along with the insurgents' success in Iraq,
 inspire Islamist radicals in the region and around the world.
     In his second Inaugural Address, the president embraced the promotion
 of democracy as his top priority, declaring: "The survival of liberty in
 our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."
 Hirsh points out, however, that in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, as
 in Russia, Pakistan and other places, liberty is retreating. Now citizens
 of countries where Washington has called for greater democracy-Iran, say,
 or Syria- have three less-than-inspiring examples close to home. In
 Lebanon, Iranian-backed Hizbullah reigns as a power unto itself. In Iraq,
 the sect-based parties that came to power in the 2005 elections have
 created a bloody nightmare, and stymied any attempts to forge a truly
 national consensus. And in the Palestinian territories, Washington simply
 rejected the election results.
     After Hamas's wins, the United States and other Western countries cut
 aid money to the Palestinian government, instead funneling resources
 directly to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office, reports Jerusalem
 Bureau Chief Kevin Peraino. Some observers accuse Washington of baldly
 encouraging rivalry between the two camps. In a confidential report leaked
 last week, United Nations envoy Alvaro de Soto wrote that "the U.S. clearly
 pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas." De Soto recounts
 listening to a U.S. official declare, "I like this violence," twice at an
 envoys' meeting in Washington recently. "The U.S. fanned the flames of this
 internal Palestinian conflict," says Haim Malka of Washington's Center for
 Strategic and International Studies. State Department spokesman Sean
 McCormack dismissed de Soto's remarks as "the views of an individual."
     What seems certain is that Hamas-run Gaza is doomed to greater
 isolation and misery. With the Islamists in control, Israel may intensify
 its campaign of air strikes on Hamas rocket teams and other militants. Some
 Israeli analysts point out that a strong Hamas leadership in Gaza could
 have its advantages; at least someone would be in control there. But that
 is a minority view. "There's no common ground [with Hamas]," says Ephraim
 Sneh, Israel's deputy Defense minister. Dialogue, he says, is almost
 certainly a nonstarter. "Listen to them, for God's sake!" he says. "Gaza
 will be worse than Mogadishu. Our Apache [helicopter gunships] will talk to
 them."
     Peraino also reports that Gaza is likely to experience further troubles
 once the chaos settles because of the exodus of the territory's middle
 class citizens. The Gazans most likely to escape are those with means and
 connections--the ones Gaza can least afford to lose. In the past 12 months,
 88,320 people have left Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah crossing, and only
 76,176 have come in-a net loss of some 12,000 people. Anecdotal evidence
 suggests that the vast majority of those who manage to escape are the
 young, wealthy and well educated. Many of those who are leaving are
 technocrat types who work for organizations like the United Nations and
 foreign NGOs with global reach.
     "The next American president will have to grapple with a Middle East
 that is messier and quite possibly angrier than before 9/11." Hirsh says.
 "But also, in a larger sense, he or she will have to confront anew a harsh
 lesson in the limits of power. America can only be, at best, a guiding hand
 behind an international system that is disposed to democracy and open
 markets."
     Meanwhile, in Iraq, patience with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is
 running out. Maliki recently gave Newsweek an exclusive interview in which
 he expressed optimism for the process of turning his country around. But
 the slow pace is testing the patience of Iraqis and Americans, except
 apparently, President George W. Bush. With mounting pressure from all sides
 to speed up reconciliation among Iraq's various parties and bringing an end
 to the civil war, Maliki says he needs time in order to make long-term
 decisions-ones that will be "written in stone"-and says he's confident that
 Bush understands. Maliki tells Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional
 Editor Chris Dickey and Baghdad Correspondent Larry Kaplow, "The timetables
 given, sometimes I do not find them in President Bush's mind so much as
 they are in the minds of some people who make [public] statements."
     Maliki says his close relationship with Bush has a lot to do with fate,
 "Destiny wanted to bring together two people who strongly stick to their
 principles." But what the two of them see as resolve, however, many others
 see as stubbornness (that has yet to bring an end to violence.)
     (Read cover story at www.Newsweek.com)
     http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19263096/site/newsweek/
 
 

SOURCE Newsweek