This kind of thing is important, because in 7 or 8 years the Islamist forces overrunning the West Bank are going to need storehouses of US security aid to replenish their resources after the takeover:

And haven't they just done a bang-up job in the last couple of weeks? Do you think that the United States is trying to fail in the Middle East, or do you think that State Department officials are so deadened by decades of empty catchphrases and shibboleths that they literally can't wrap their minds around the concept of "what you're doing has been counter-productive for decades"?

What about foreign policy experts? Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter - by all fair and reasonable standards one of the policy minds of her generation - was on CNN last night describing how the younger generations of Palestinians are more radicalized than the older ones. She was talking about it as if this is something that just happened one morning, while hinting that perhaps the new reality calls for international engagement with Hamas. Totally absent was even an allusion to the not entirely incredible suggestion that Western engagement with a Palestinian government that advocates genocide in cartoons and textbooks might have something to do with the radicalization of young Palestinians.

References:
* US to continue training Abbas' guard [YNet]
* Of Course Cutting Edge Military Tech Ended Up In Hamas's Hands - That's Why You Shouldn't Arm Relatively Weak Erstwhile Terrorists [MR]
* Decades Of Internationally Sanctioned Vicious Resentment Have Turned Inward

Previously:
* US State Department: Lebanon Is Not Responsible for Hezbollah
* Memo To Diplomatic Sophisticates: Ahmadinejad Did Not Get The Part Where You Meeting With Him and Being Nice To Him Was A 'Criticism'
* Oh Look - Another American Intelligence Chief Blames Arafat For the Collapse Of the Peace Process