Bush: Hezbollah could join mainstream

WASHINGTON (AP)—President Bush on Tuesday left open the possibility that the militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah could be part of the political mainstream in Lebanon despite its terrorist past.

“We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization,” Bush said after an Oval Office meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah. “I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they are not by laying down arms and not threatening peace.”

Go, “Democracy”! Since “democracy” means that the people rule, and since lots of people in Lebanon support Hezbollah, Hezbollah naturally has to be included in the country’s emerging “democratic” politics.

This is the inevitable fruit of Bush’s simplistic evocation of “democracy” as the supreme good and as the answer to all problems including terrorism. By making “democracy” the solution to Islamic terrorism, we end up legitimizing Islamic terrorists, even the principal Islamic terrorist group in the Mideast.

This is where the great “global democratic revolution” leads.

As with the Palestinian peace process, all Hezbollah has to do now to get Bush’s recognition is make some little token gesture that they are “laying down their arms.” Of course, they will immediately reverse course, but by then it will be too late. We will have embarked on the great “Hezbollah peace process,” and will not be able to turn back.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 15, 2005 03:06 PM | Send