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Obama Administration Prepares for Possibility of New Post-Revolt Islamist Regimes

(Washington Post) Scott Wilson - The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. "It's the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam," said a senior administration official. None of the revolutions over the past several weeks has been overtly Islamist, but there are signs that the uprisings could give way to more religious forces. Jonathan Peled, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said Israel fears that "anti-democratic extremist forces could take advantage of a democratic system," as, he said, Hamas did with its 2006 victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. "We live in the neighborhood, obviously, and so we experience the results more closely," Peled said. In a speech Monday in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implicitly invited Islamist parties to participate in the region's future elections with conditions. "Political participation," Clinton said, "must be open to all people across the spectrum who reject violence, uphold equality and agree to play by the rules of democracy."
2011-03-04 00:00:00
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