The U.S. government and mainstream media are openly hysterical over the recent turn of events in the Middle East. Continuing Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-British occupation and factional infighting in the democratically-elected parliament, the free and fair election of a Hamas government in Palestine, the threat of Hezbollah-led armed forces in Lebanon, and democratic Iran’s refusal to submit to U.S.-led demands that it renounce its nuclear program: these pose serious problems for the imperium. The Bush administration pursued a policy of invasion, occupation and repression in a self-proclaimed quest to spread Western-style “representative democracy” in the region. And yet now, confronted with the results of democratic elections in Iraq, Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon, it pounds the table in protest and gives Israel the green light to go to war against Lebanon.