American policy in Palestine Authority's lands supposedly promotes democracy. The dictatorship of Yasser Arafat and PLO's corruption were much condemned. New polls in January have changed much. Echoing the election results in Egypt, the Hamas victory in Palestine surprised both Americans and Israelis. Although the 24 years rule by Hosni Mobarak remains in place, the controversial Egyptian polls have convincingly returned many Muslim Brotherhood candidates. The trend was confirmed in Palestine where in free elections Hamas returned with a thumping majority. That has upset the Israeli and American applecart.

The US's old enemy, Iran, is accused of wanting to have atomic weapons and that upsets America's imperial designs. Americans have been smarting since the 1979 revolution and subsequent hostage crisis. If only the US-led world had left Iran alone, the social evolution would surely have broadened democracy's base and would have started removing its deficiencies. Iran is only partly democratic because it is hamstrung by clerical authoritarianism. It is actually a hybrid of clerics' authoritarianism and people's democratic preferences.

Iran has a fairly elected government but it is controlled and checked by superior clerical authority through a nominated upper house of 12 clerics that can veto almost anything of importance to democracy. The two elections of President Mohammad Khatemi, mainly on the votes of discontented youth and women, represented an assertion of democratic impulses; Khatemi was in practice trying to work loose from the constrictions imposed by Khomeini's constitution. The US cold war against it and the recent campaign against the alleged Iranian nuclear ambitions have helped clerics suppress the reformers by projecting themselves as the defenders of Iran's national honour. That has caused a setback to the democratic forces there.

Iran has now been "referred" to the UN Security Council for possible punitive action, though Russia and China have expressed misgivings about possible UN sanctions. Even the Europeans' solidarity with America looks a rather uncertain category. There are reasons for it.

One, Iran is no Iraq or Afghanistan. Should the west contemplate entering militarily in Iran, it would get into a morass with no way out. After Iraq and Afghanistan experiences, military intervention by America or Israel in Iran is not a practical proposition. Willy nilly, the US will have to rely on talks and probably Iran would go its own way in the end.

As for nuclear question, the P5, IAEA and others -- assuming Iran's secret nuclear ambitions are genuine -- have no moral right to object. As a Pakistani, this writer cannot denounce possible Iranian nuclear intentions in the situation it finds itself, with so many enemies around, all armed with nuclear weapons. After all Pakistan also built the Bomb. So did Israel and India. There are clear double standards here.

UN recognizes five nuclear powers as does the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the P5 are not acting on the NPT in good faith; they have no plans to disarm. They go on proliferating vertically. NPT requires them to begin disarming. There are three other powers with known nuclear weapons: Pakistan, Israel, and India. Israel directly threatens Iran. If these three can get away with their atomic arsenals, why shouldn't Iran? Which morality enjoins that India, Pakistan and Israel should have the Bomb but not Iran?

The world is in a quagmire. The only way out is for America to allow democratic processes a free play in Iran and elsewhere, especially in remaining Palestine. The fear that Iran will eventually dominate large parts of the Middle East is both speculative and altogether too arrogant. The US intent to remain dominant everywhere is clear. If a higher stature is implicit in Iran's capabilities, let it find free play. Who has the right to checkmate it? Which thinking person would condemn Iran while closing eyes toward what others are doing?

There is also Hamas in Palestine. Like PLO and Yasser Arafat earlier, it does not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state; many others, including all honest intellectuals, also question its legitimacy. Israel is an imperial imposition on Arab Palestine, approved by UN on US, British, and Soviet insistence. European nations and America were those that persecuted the Jews. They had salved their collective conscience at Arab expense by imposing European Jews on Arab Palestine If the directly concerned Arabs reject it, what is strange in it? The great swindle of the Arabs began in 1917 and continues as Israel.

Hamas is accused of wanting to liquidate the Israeli state, it has an armed militia of its own, and does not recognize Oslo and Roadmap agreements. That supposedly creates the crisis: Israel and US cannot recognize Hamas's victory. But negotiations remain the only way out. Hamas wants to talk. It proposes an unlimited armistice with the Israelis and wants to negotiate many other matters. These talks offer ample scope for peaceful settlement. Why make a formal recognition of Israel a precondition? Demanding a prior formal recognition from Hamas seems to hide unsavoury designs. A substantive measure of de facto recognition of Israel is implicit in negotiations between warring parties. It is in fact the substance of de facto recognition, bar shouting.

And what will negotiations settle? Naturally Hamas-Israeli talks will be about Oslo and Roadmap. Whether Israel has acted upon them or not will be the question. Let Israel settle the terms of coexistence with elected Palestinians, including about disarming of Hamas militia. Disarming process can be agreed upon as a result of negotiations, dovetailing it in official PA security services' upgradation; it cannot precede negotiations. The west has been threatening to cut PA to a shilling. Those who pay can certainly withhold payments. But is that the way to treat a democratically elected party? Talks have to begin first. All these differences are easily resolvable.

Some correction of angle of vision is necessary. The two, the Israelis and Arabs, cannot be treated on a par. Arabs are the main residents of the place and Palestine belonged to them, and Israelis are, all said and done, aggressors and usurpers. Vacation of the aggression is a natural demand. If, for the sake of the argument about power -- and Israel is a powerful state that cannot be wished away and is unlikely to be thrown out -- realism has to inform both sides' stances on coexistence. But realism cannot totally preempt or change the basic status of either.

Outsiders should stop being partisans of aggressive Israelis. There is no morality in supporting aggressors all the time. If the Europeans and the Americans stop being godfathers and protectors of Israel, an Arab-Israeli settlement can quickly follow. Moreover, Israel is strong enough to survive by its own strength. It needs this kind of western support for aggressive purposes to take away more lands from the Arabs and to keep them subjugated. This is not on. No impartial person anywhere approves of the current western obsession with protecting Israel. Israel needs to do some recognizing of its own: Arabs' human rights and those as the rightful owners of Palestine. Realism today does not demand Israelis' disappearance from the Arab homeland. A co-existence on an honourable basis has to be worked out.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.