Democracy, Bush style

If you don't like the guys that got elected, just throw them out and try again.

JERUSALEM, Feb. 13 — The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

It seems to me this is the same strategy we've tried to use on Cuba (not that Castro was elected), and that's worked really well, hasn't it? How many years has it been?