Iranians are in an uphill struggle to have a modern democracy and more freedoms, but the last thing their reformers or rights activists need is foreign interference that would directly discredit them in the eyes of the majority of their people. The people of Iran, generally fond of western societies, remain suspicious of US foreign policy. And amid rumors that neo-conservatives and Christian Zionists seek to nuke their 70-million population, accompanied with serious threats from the Bush administration, their reformist camp took a heavy blow.
You have to remember that during World War II even rooted democracies like Britain suspended all democratic activities and, to Iranians, the US is still perceived as an enemy that poses an existential threat.
Hands off Hamas
I don't know of any people who have defended their electoral choice with so much blood and sweat -- plus hunger and disease -- as the people of Palestine following their election of Hamas. They faced a superpower (US), an occupation power (Israel), propaganda war by pro-Israelis, Islamaphopbes, anti-Arab racists, Arab dictators, self-loathing Muslims, and tag-along opportunists, while being besieged in a tiny overpopulated strip. They were punished for their votes and, at the same time, were prevented somehow from being represented.
It is all right, according to some Rabbis, to kill the Palestinians because they voted for Hamas, but Hamas, so Israel wishes, must not be seen as representing them. It wasn't enough to take away their liberty as well as their health and lives; their political and social voices had to be taken away too. And thus, Hamas leaders had to be silenced -- but should they speak, then the mainstream media is there to distort their views. So called "experts" and "analysts" indulge in debates on why Hamas was elected, fruitlessly seeking to undermine their legitimacy, forgetting that in democracies, reasons of voting for one party instead of another does not affect the power that comes from the ballot box.
They often speak of corruption in Fatah or by some members of the Palestinian Authority, without even giving much thought to what that implies. To Palestinians, corruption is not just breaking the law for some financial benefits; it is deeper than that. Many see corruption as selling Palestinian rights to Israel for personal gains; i.e. treason of the first degree. The people of Palestine had faced many atrocities before; land theft, ethnic cleansing, occupation, bone breaking, imprisonment, tight sieges, and mass murder, among other injustices. But it was only under Bush's watch that their first ever democracy and electoral choice came under such ruthless attack.
Jews-only democracy
There's no doubt that, in many senses of the word, Israel is a democracy. It could be because the whole system was planted there by the west, like many of Israel's American and European immigrants who settled there during and after the creation of the Jewish state. It also could be that the people there reached that wise decision on their own. Nevertheless, whatever the causes and reasons are, the positive aspects of its democracy must be acknowledged. But it should not pass as something comparable to western democracies (not that they make those like they used to anymore).
You have to remember a democracy is usually elected by a majority. Yet the majority of the people of that particular land are forced to live in exile. Imagine if you'd expel the majority of blacks in the US and then when Election Day comes, you'd say to the few who remained that they have a right to vote and they should count their blessings for living in a democracy. You might even want to consider demanding that they show their loyalty to you. You didn't ban anyone from voting, you just prevented them from returning to their rightful homes, making them unable to cast their ballots.
Until the Palestinian refugees' problem is solved on a just basis, the Jewish state cannot claim to be a true democracy. But what has the Bush administration done to ease the plight of those estimated six-million Palestinian refugees? Plus, as the US should know, being a democracy at home does not give you the right to be a dictator abroad.
So why was Iraq invaded? Was it for money (oil)? For love (of Israel)? Or just for fame (keeping superpower reputation means teaching others a lesson every now and then)? I am not completely sure, but you can bet your sorry soul it was never about democracy.
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