Lessons not Learned
Excerpts from an article posted yesterday in McClatchy's Washington Bureau
Officials in the Bush administration awoke on the morning of January 26, 2006 to catastrophic news.
Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections — elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone to President Bush's initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.
For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas from power.
. . .
As recently as March 2007, Jordanian officials developed a $1.2 billion proposal to train, arm and pay Abbas' security forces so they could control the streets after he dissolved the government and called new elections. McClatchy Newspapers obtained a copy of the plan. While two sources close to Abbas said U.S. officials were involved in developing and presenting the plan, a State Department official described it as a Jordanian initiative.
. . .
"America is so far away, they are completely misinformed about what is happening," said Munib Masri, a Palestinian businessman allied with Abbas. "The more they do against Hamas, the more power they (Hamas) get from the people."
. . .
Hamas attacked in mid-June, sweeping away Fatah's forces in Gaza in a matter of days.
Bush administration officials argue that the attack revealed fractures in Hamas, saying it was apparently ordered by military commanders at odds with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Hamas is now politically isolated, they say.
But as Rice and Israel again move to bolster Abbas with hundreds of millions of dollars in previously blocked funds, some current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration has repeatedly underestimated Hamas and failed to recognize how dysfunctional its Fatah ally had become.
Said Miller: "I don't know if we grasp it even now."
Now, none of this is a surprise, at least not to me, but what I find interesting about this story is its similarities to a story in the Washington Post from almost exactly a year ago.
The Americans were in Somalia because of concerns about terrorism, not land. But when the gunfire rang out, the sources said, the U.S. officials wrongly concluded that they were under attack by Islamic terrorists and abruptly fled. It was a provocation, U.S. officials later told Somalis, that demanded a muscular response.
In the weeks that followed this little-known incident, which U.S. officials have refused to confirm or deny, the United States expanded its role in Somalia to levels not seen since it abandoned the country in 1994. The Americans helped organize a group of secular warlords into an "anti-terror coalition" and provided them with a large, steady diet of cash.
. . .
The infusion of cash upset a fragile balance between the two sides -- but not in the direction the Americans had hoped.
By March, the warlords were under siege. By June 6, they had fled. And by June 24, Hassan Dahir Aweys, a militant Islamic leader hostile to Western democracy and reputed to have ties to al-Qaeda, had taken control of Mogadishu.
. . .
Anti-Americanism, stoked by the war in Iraq, intensified as supporters of the Islamic courts spread word that the United States was backing the warlords, whom many residents of Mogadishu say operated with impunity as their gunmen terrorized the lawless city, raping, robbing and killing as they pleased.
Public opinion gradually coalesced in favor of the Islamic courts and their militias, Somalis say. Prominent businessmen contributed men, trucks and guns to the cause of driving out the warlords. And so on Feb. 18, when Raghe and several other warlords announced the formation of an "anti-terrorism coalition" -- featuring the backing of even more American money -- the reaction was swift. Battles broke out the same day in a struggle now seen as being between homegrown Islamic militias and a hated U.S. proxy force.
Two things leap out when the articles are read side by side. The first, is that the Bush Administration apparently has no ability to learn from its mistakes.
The second: Even the Republican candidates for President in 2008 don't want any implicit support from Bush lest it sink their chances. If his own party finds his support a burden, how much more people in areas of the world where there is far greater reason for dislike of him and his policies? These may have been unintended consequences, but they were far from unpredictable.
