Last week's mass demonstration by Hezbollah in the streets of Beirut was commonly described as a check on the Middle East's first mass movement for freedom, and a setback for the United States and its regional allies. It could be. But it might also serve as a starting point for the necessary next phase of the Arab awakening, which is the incorporation of Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamic movements into the region's new politics.
While cheering on Lebanon's liberals -- most of them Christians and Druze -- and accepting the likely reality of a Shiite-led government in Iraq, the Bush administration hasn't changed its old approach to the Islamic movements that command large popular followings in the region. Together with Israel, it has -- at least until recently -- pressed European governments to declare Hezbollah a terrorist movement and strangle its finances; it has also supported Israeli demands that Hamas be "dismantled," rather than merely pacified, by the new Palestinian government. U.S. diplomats won't even talk to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of the region's Islamic parties.