"Hamas victory to Syria: Regional victory with internal challenges"

Ibrahime Hamidi commented in the March 1 issue of Al Hayat, a privately owned newspaper, about the implications of the victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the Palestinian elections on Syria at both the regional and internal levels. Hamidi wrote: "The victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections sets many internal challenges for Syria in the long run despite the fact that it entails political victories in the short run."Hamidi wrote: "Damscus' right to express its intense relief at the overwhelming victory achieved by the Hamas movement is due to many reasons, some of which are: Firstly, the victory belonged to a great political ally of Damascus which constituted one of the major cards for the Syrian regional role that Syria worked hard not to give up despite all the pressure applied by the United States after the war on Iraq in the spring of 2003…Secondly the victory of the Hamas movement constitutes the first hole in the 'isolation wall' around Syria according to the head of the politburo of the movement; for the American administration as well as Arab and European countries started to discover the 'danger [encouraged] by the isolation policy on the stability in the Middle East' and the possibility that the pressures might empower the 'forces of extremism' in the region… "Thirdly, the Syrian authorities had already informed western envoys that free elections in the Middle East and regime changing would lead to the victory of moderate or extremist Islamists and would result in regimes that are hostile to the West, and that the American and Israeli policies are weakening the Palestinian president and helping the forces of extremism… No doubt the victory of Hamas would lead, according to Syrian opinion, to a revaluation of the theory of regime change externally and would lead to the stopping of the wheel of the pressure to impose democracy in countries where Islam is deepening its spread as opposed to the fragile layer of secularism."Hamidi added: "But against these 'victories' we can talk about three threats to the Syrian regime in the long run: Firstly, it is true that Hamas's victory confused the American administration… but what appeared so far points to the fact that the Bush administration is not about to reevaluate its course of action and that some of its factions 'does not mind the entry of Islamists through the gate of elections'…Secondly, Syria is now and for the first time surrounded by Islamic regimes brought to power through a democratic or sectarian or even revolutionary means. In the north there is the Turkish 'Justice and Development Party' governing through democracy… In the east the Shiite coalition stood out in the elections through democracy… and behind Iraq lays the Islamic Iran. To the west lies the Lebanese Hezbollah who gained its legitimacy through its resistance and to the south lies Hamas… and near Gaza the Muslim Brotherhood gained a lot of parliamentary seats in the recent Egyptian elections. "Expectations also point to an important victory for the Jordanian Islamic brotherhood in the upcoming elections. Therefore Syria who is governed by a secular-nationalist-socialist party seems isolated…Thirdly one of the reasons of the Hamas victory is that the people voted against the ruling Fatah movement… Fatah only stayed in power for a decade, so how about the Baath party which has been governing for the past 43 years? How would the voters vote in any free and honest elections?..." - Al Hayat, United Kingdom