Here, It's Yours

"Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing...they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers."

    - Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), Scottish writer

N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written an op-ed that makes a lot of sense to me. He cites Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent decision to withdraw from Gaza as a potentially positive event for that part of the world:

"Consider an intriguing article on Tuesday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz pointing out that Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas, longtime rivals, had 'made great progress' toward setting up a new administration to run Gaza after Israel's unilateral withdrawal."

Hamas leaders, who not suprisingly are taking credit for liberating Gaza, are telling Arafat that they're willing to help administer the area now that Israel is pulling back to the U.N. border. Friedman believes that Gazans will eventually begin looking to Arafat and Hamas for essentials, and feels that having full control of the area will make it difficult for them to legitimately shirk these duties. As Mr. Friedman says, "There is nothing like the burden of responsibility to promote accountability."

Friedman then makes the point that those who are faced with the challenge of allowing the Iraqis to govern themselves by June 30th, might benefit from considering the Israel/Palestine example:

"America's Baghdad boss, Paul Bremer, is absolutely right when he insists that we must turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, as promised. Why? Because we may have trained thousands of Iraqi policemen, but without a government of their own, they are defending America--which they will never do with vigor. The only thing they might defend is a government of their own."

He also believes that putting responsibility for Iraq into the hands of its own people as soon as possible will lead them to accountability, which is in very short supply right now:

"Iraq's nascent leaders will act in a concerted and responsible fashion only when they--like Hamas, Arafat and Hezbollah--have the burden of responsibility."

His theory seems plausible, but it is a theory. Only time will reveal whether the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will play out as he thinks it will. Assuming that we hold to our June 30th commitment in Iraq, we may know how that goes well before we know how the Israeli experiment will fare. I, for one, hope that Mr. Friedman is right--in both instances.

Note: Viewing the Friedman column at the Times requires a brief, but free, registration. Sorry about that.

Update: Complications abound. The Economist outlines some of them here and here, and if you're interested, they provide a chronology of the Middle East conflict from 1917 to the present.