...is paved by good intentions.

U.S. missteps led to Gaza crisis

Officials in the Bush administration awoke on the morning of Jan. 26, 2006, to catastrophic news.

Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections - elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone of President Bush's initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.

For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas.

Instead of undermining Hamas, though, the strategy helped widen political fissures in Palestinian politics that have delivered another setback to the president's vision of a stable, pro-Western Middle East.

The administration's drive to change the political facts in the Middle East foundered on opposition in Congress, the differing goals of allies such as Saudi Arabia, and an inability to provide Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with the backing he needed to confront Hamas.

Three weeks ago, Hamas leaders outmaneuvered everyone else and seized the Gaza Strip in a swift military campaign that vanquished secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. Abbas, with U.S. encouragement, responded by dissolving the Hamas-led government and declaring emergency rule. Now, with Palestinians divided into two mini-states in Gaza and the West Bank, mediating a peace deal with Israel will be harder than ever.

The strategy toward Hamas was overseen by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and carried out largely by Elliott Abrams, a leading neoconservative in the White House, and Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. At its heart was a plan to organize military support for Abbas for what opponents feared could have become a Palestinian civil war, according to officials in Washington and the Middle East, and documents.

As recently as March, Jordanian officials developed a $1.2 billion proposal to train, arm and pay Abbas' security forces so they could control the streets after he dissolved the government and called new elections. While sources close to Abbas said U.S. officials were involved in developing the plan, a State Department official described it as a Jordanian initiative.

Ultimately, congressional concerns in Washington and Israeli objections kept any significant military aid from being delivered, even as Israeli intelligence and the CIA warned that Hamas was becoming stronger.

Long term, the U.S. effort to oust Hamas has deepened doubts in the Middle East about the Bush administration's understanding of the region.

Well before the Palestinian elections in January 2006, the White House and Rice had ample warning about the risks of allowing Hamas to participate, according to two senior U.S. officials. Among those raising alarms were Arab leaders and Tzipi Livni, now Israel's foreign minister.

But Abbas argued that elections would not be credible without Hamas, and Washington went along, said one of the senior U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Was that a mistake?

"Maybe," he said. "The question was debated at the time."

Once Hamas was elected, the White House gave almost no thought to accepting the results and trying to co-opt the hard-line Islamist group, which the U.S. government deems a terrorist organization, current and former U.S. officials said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, "I don't think it was ever possible emotionally, ideologically ... for this administration to consider reaching out, probing" Hamas, said Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

Instead, Rice orchestrated an international financial boycott of the new Palestinian government, an action that failed to weaken Hamas or force it to moderate its views.

Simultaneously, throughout the spring and summer of 2006, the United States pressed Abbas to confront Hamas to end the political paralysis in the Palestinian Authority. In a July 2006 meeting, Abrams and Welch urged Abbas to dismiss the government, said Edward Abington, a former U.S. diplomat who advises the Palestinian leader.

Abbas "just refused," Abington said. "He was afraid there would be armed rebellion."

"The U.S. clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas," wrote Alvaro de Soto, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, in a final report before retiring this spring.

Abrams and Welch, the senior Bush administration official said, discussed two options with Abbas: new elections, or an emergency government, followed by elections.

As the financial pressure on the Hamas-led government failed to undermine it, the Bush administration increased emphasis on training and equipping Abbas' security forces. But resistance from Congress and Israel prevented this third element in the U.S. plan from getting off the ground. Meanwhile, Hamas was using underground tunnels to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

With Palestinians at the brink of civil war, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia undertook its own peace initiative to halt the bloodshed. And in February 2007, Abbas - rejecting the advice of aides who argued for confrontation - joined with Hamas to form a unity government. Israel and the United States felt betrayed by the deal, signed in the Saudi city of Mecca, seeing it as a step backward for Abbas, who had now formally allied himself with the hard-liners both countries had worked to isolate.

Israeli intelligence briefings had been warning all year that Hamas was getting stronger and Fatah forces weren't up to the task of fighting back. The CIA's assessments of the power balance "were accurate, which is to say they were gloomy," the senior administration official said.

Hamas attacked in mid-June, sweeping away Fatah's forces in Gaza in a matter of days.

Bush administration officials say the attack revealed fractures in Hamas and that military commanders at odds with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh apparently ordered it. Hamas is now politically isolated, they say.

But as Rice and Israel again move to bolster Abbas with hundreds of millions of dollars in previously blocked funds, some current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration has repeatedly underestimated Hamas and failed to see how dysfunctional Fatah had become.