Tuesday, March 01, 2005
How to report good news as bad.
There've been successful elections in Iraq and among the Palestinians too -- with the latter leading to an apparent breakthrough with Israel? ... A democratic uprising in Lebanon forces the Syrian puppet government out? ... The Syrians, feeling the pressure, turn over Saddam's brother? ... Multi-party elections are declared to be coming in Egypt?...
Hey, you know that if there's a bad side to all this the New York Times will find it, in its "news analysis"...
Less than six weeks after President Bush's Inaugural Address appealing for democratic reforms in the Middle East, the United States is coping with an unaccustomed problem: a region churning with fresh demands for democracy...After a whole month! (Does the Times report like this about Italy when it goes through four governments a year?)
By almost any measure, there is an unusual amount of turbulence throughout the Middle East right now, and administration experts are not sure whether all of it will work in the United States' favor...
In Iraq, which remains very unstable ... Baghdad is having trouble forging a political consensus on a new government drawing together the victors in the election...
Still another short timeline - also driven by successful elections, this time by Palestinians - is compelling the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to assemble a credible security and political team in Gaza and parts of the West Bank before Israel starts its planned withdrawal of forces and settlers from those areas in July...This is bad ???
"If the United States pushes Syria too far, it could end up losing the support of the Europeans ..."... said an Arab diplomat...And we never would have been able to arrange those elections in Iraq without the help of the Europeans.
Let's face it: the entire region isn't Switzerland yet -- self-evidently, America has screwed up again.
