"The prevailing view in the Middle East is that where Arab nations failed to stand up to Israel and the United States, an Islamic movement succeeded."
This is the lead in to an article in the Sunday NY Times
And Now, Islamism Trumps Arabism, By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: August 20, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/...
The article focuses on Hezbollah, and credits the Muslim Brotherhood, but somehow fails to mention the "other" Islamic Fundamentalist Movement which predates Hezbollah by several decades and includes the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Al Qaeda. These two pan-Arabic operations have been in competition since 1979, however perhaps no longer. If they make common cause the U.S. faces a kind of nationalism without borders that Christianity once was very briefly. This new religio-nationalist movement may be the most sophisticated foe Western Imperialism has ever faced. Just as the Israeli Army seems to have underestimated Hezbollah, so, it would seem, has Bushco vastly underestimated Arabic political flexibility.
Here's a little more of the article:
... Hezbollahs perceived triumph has propelled, and been propelled by, a wave already washing over the region. Political Islam was widely seen as the antidote to the failures of Arab nationalism, Communism,
socialism and, most recently, what is seen as the false promise of American-style democracy. It was that wave that helped the banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood win 88 seats in Egypts Parliament last December despite the governments violent efforts to stop voters from getting to the polls. It was that wave that swept Hamas into power in
the Palestinian government in January, shocking Hamas itself....
...Hezbollah's perceived victory has highlighted, and to many people here
validated, the rise of another unifying ideology, a kind of
Arab-Islamic nationalism. On the street it has even seemed to erase
divisions between Islamic sects, like Sunni and Shiite....
... The terms Islamic nationalism and pan-Islamism have a negative
connotation in the West, where they are associated with fundamentalism
and terrorism. But that is increasingly not the case in Egypt. Under
the dual pressures of foreign military attacks in the region and a
government widely viewed as corrupt and illegitimate, Islamic groups
are seen by many people as incorruptible, disciplined, efficient and
caring. A victory for Hezbollah in Lebanon is by extension a victory
for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt....