Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright distances herself from the foreign policy "realists" in today's Washington Post. She rightly argues, "if all America stands for is stability, no one will follow us for the simple reason that we aren't going anywhere." Her Clinton-era colleague, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, understood the pitfalls of jumping on the "realist" bandwagon many months ago. Setting aside Albright's distortion on why we invaded Iraq and her administration's spotty national security record, it's good to see another senior Democrat join the ranks of other democracy promoters such as World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz and the late President Ronald Reagan. Though, the secretary's position on Hamas is confusing. She writes that the Hamas victory suggests, "that, in the Middle East, democracy will do less to extinguish terror, as President Bush predicts, than to ignite it." But seven paragraphs later she informs us,
As for the Palestinians, let us be fair -- elections did not create Hamas. Voters turned to that terrorist group only because prior Palestinian governments didn't deliver. Now, precisely because of the elections, Hamas will be tested as it has never been before, and it will be required to do what it has never done. This will create pressure on the organization to refrain from violence and to moderate its policies toward Israel. Democracy did not create Hamas, but it may cause Hamas to change -- or to fail. Either outcome would be an improvement on the status quo.
So President Bush was right to push for elections in the Palestinian territories?