ARTICLE: “Israeli troops, settlers battle as homes are torn down: Operation to demolish illegal dwellings is part of obligations under U.S.-backed peace plan,” by Matthew Gutman, USA Today, 2 February 2006, p. 6A.

OP-ED: “Squaring Islam With Democracy,” by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 2 February 2006, p. A21.

ARTICLE: “Arabs join in pressuring Hamas over Israel,” by Associated Press, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 4.

ARTICLE: “Both Fatah and Hamas Leaders Urge West to Continue Aid to Palestinians,” by Greg Myre, New York Times, 31 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Hamas Faces Crisis if Funding Dries Up,” by Karby Leggett, Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2006, p. A7.

OP-ED: “Declining option on Iran,” by H.D.S. Greenway, International Herald Tribune, 1 February 2006, p. 7.

ARTICLE: “Sanctions Threat Prompts Big Firms To Cut Iran Ties,” by Glenn R. Simpson and John R. Wilke, Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2006, p. A3.

ARTICLE: “A rainbow of revolutions: If outsiders make such a mess of getting rid of despots, why not encourage the locals to have a go? The Economist, 21 January 2006, p. 23.

This has been my complaint with the Bush administration since it toppled Saddam: their goal was to set things in motion in the Middle East, which they did. But then the White House basically has done nothing to keep things rolling or take advantage of new opportunities as they emerged.

Instead, it’s been a rather unimaginative affair after the bold step of toppling Saddam. Much of that was due to the bungling of the occupation period and then the long hard slog out of that valley since the spring of 2004.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the push for democracy, but absent a larger effort to push economic connectivity all you end up doing is providing more immediate venues for the anger of the disconnected masses to spring forth.

Is that so bad? Frankly, it beats the alternative of rigid ruling elites keeping a lid on all that so the only way it can escape is through terrorism directed abroad or against foreigners within the region. And letting them gain rule? Again, will Hamas be any more ineffective at leading than Fatah was, and if Hamas persists in its nonsense vis-à-vis Israel, all it will end up achieving is speeding up Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and securing itself behind that Berlin Wall it’s building. In the end, all that really happens is that we break stalemates and get to the logical ending faster.

And guess what? That was the whole purpose of the Big Bang in the first place.

Hoagland has it right. Now is not the time for timidity. It’s the time to reach out and work the fluid political scenes we’re being confronted with:

Bush should not abandon his push for Middle Eastern democracy because radicals draw temporary advantage from it. But he needs to reexamine where that push is taking him. This means forging a new Western strategy to engage with and support moderate forms of political Islam, rather than assuming that democratic elections and other reforms will automatically separate religion and politics and devalue the former in favor of the latter.

Honestly, I don’t think that’s Bush’s assumption, nor Cheney’s. I think they’re more than comfortable watching the Big Bang continue to stir things up. I just think they need to get into the game, instead of just sitting on the sidelines or repeating the WMD dynamic with Iran like it’s the only pathway we know.

And frankly, dangling that reduction of the “oil addiction,” like the U.S. Government ‘s going to engineer that soon in one of those mythical “Manhattan Projects” that op-ed columnists are always calling for, is just plain pandering to the polls in the short term.

Hamas coming to power doesn’t reduce our options, it increases them. But only if we actually see the fluidity introduced to the strategic environment and don’t just recoil back in horror.

Hamas is being pressured by other Arab regimes over its intransigent stance with Israel. With Fatah in power, we’ve got those same regimes basically sitting on their hands. With Hamas, we’ve got them agitating in the right direction.

Hamas is not stupid. Without Western aid, their vaunted social welfare efforts with the masses evaporate. I mean, as long as that rat bastard thief Arafat was in power, we were simply putting money in his pocket. Now, we actually have some leverage. Question is, will Rice’s State do anything about that, or just stick with their admission that no one saw it coming?

Meanwhile, on Iran, we’ve played out our sanctions threat for the mean time, as we couldn’t get China and Russia to send the issue packing to the UN Security Council.

Rest assured, many pundits and experts will be undeterred, and make all sorts of loose talk about bombing away Iran’s nuclear effort, but the vast majority have no idea what they’re talking about.

Smart money says if we hope to really take out Iran’s capacity, we’ll have to go nuclear or simply satisfy ourselves with conventionals that do damage but don’t finish the job.

As for finishing the job a la Iraq, we simply don’t have the rotational capacity right now, and we won’t for the rest of the Bush administration. That die is cast.

So sure, we can scare off Western firms from any business with Iran, but don’t expect the Chinese and Russians and Indians to leave the scene. There’s simply too much at stake economically for all three.

Disconnecting Iran with this slow strangle might seem to reduce our options, but again, Hoagland’s point applies across the board. I mean, isn’t it amazing that when Iran has a reformist president, we know that’s complete BS because the Ayatollah really runs everything, and yet when the hardliner’s in the presidency, somehow all of a sudden he’s running everything?

If that were so, you’d have to explain why the Ayatollah selected Rafsanjani, the moderate loser in the presidential election, to head the Expediency Council that mediates disputes between the parliament, the mullahs and—now—the government too. You’d have to explain why Ahmadinejad’s first several picks for oil minister were rejected by the parliament. Yes, you’d have to explain away a lot of things like that.

Then again, you’d have to notice them first.

Peaceful revolutions from within are always going to be more frequent than America-led violent overthrows from outside. It’s been true for decades now, and it will be true for decades into the future.

But that only makes our choices for military interventions more important. Pick the right place for the Big Bang, and then follow-up aggressively on the aftermath.

Score one for Bush on Saddam, but score zero ever since.

And to me, that’s what makes the 2k+ dead since “mission accomplished” more than hard to take.

Gotta have those happy endings. Without them, no sacrifices make sense.