Democracy on the march

The recent landslide victory by the radical Islamic group Hamas might cause some to question the validity of our president's claim that democracy is the magic potion that will lead to global peace. I mean Hamas seems rather an unsavory group upon which to pin one's democratic hopes.

Hamas is closely related to the Muslim Brotherhood and its stated goal is to "remove Israel from the map", and to establish an Islamic theocracy in the area that is currently Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. In pursuit of this, Hamas affirms a right to engage in military struggle.
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Hamas is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union, Canada, the United States, and Israel, and its attacks targeting Israeli civilians and other human rights abuses have been condemned by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

But perhaps Hamas victory this week is a function of the peculiar history of the Palestinian people and is now way indicative of a democratic trend.

Just because the people of the Gaza strip have voted into office a religiously fundamentalist and warlike group doesn't mean that trend will happen in any other countries.

It certainly couldn't happen here.