Before it proved itself militarily superior to Fatah, however, Hamas had already proved itself superior to its corrupt, fragmented rival in cementing support among the Palestinian public. Fatah became infamous for diverting foreign aid into the private offshore accounts of its leaders, while Hamas built its reputation funding education and healthcare. More than its militant Islamic fundamentalism, success in providing social services helped Hamas beat Fatah in parliamentary elections in January 2006, a crucial step in becoming the dominant force in the territories. An incident in the Gaza Strip shows how Hamas rallies popular opinion by steering help directly to the impoverished Palestinian public -- but also how the fortunes of any one faction are often only marginally relevant to the average citizens who bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.

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The damage to Ahmed's body was so extensive that the elderly woman who attended the "refrigerator," or morgue, didn't pull the body tray completely out. In the deathly quiet of the cold, dank room, Hasan's two friends carefully unwrapped the top of the white shroud stained with the young boy's blood. Still not wanting to look directly at his son, Hasan, a security guard for the Kuwaiti Embassy, dipped his head toward his son's face and let out a horrible cry of anguish.

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"No baguettes until [someone] implements 1559," says Habib, my Christian grocer, who has a mangled left eye from his days as a gunman for a Phalange militia fighting alongside the Israelis against the Palestinians and other Muslim militias in Lebanon's brutal civil war, which raged from 1975 to 1990 and whose epilogue continues sadly today.

He's talking about the United Nations resolution that calls for Syria to militarily depart from Lebanon (done) and the disarming of both Hezbollah and a slew of armed factions in the Palestinian refugee community (currently under way via laser-guided airstrikes).

"Now we must let [the Israelis] end Hezbollah," he continues. "They have started it and destroyed Lebanon. It has been cruel of them to do this, but it cannot be wasted. At least we can see them disarmed and then maybe there will be peace."

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On Wednesday, IDF strikes destroyed the bridges connecting south Lebanon to the rest of the country. By nightfall, Israeli fighters had blasted the major highways, essentially sealing off the southern third from the center of the country. Early morning Thursday, warplanes bombed Rafiq Hariri Beirut International Airport, knocking out the runways. Minutes later, an Israeli rocket struck Hezbollah's television station, al-Manar, wounding one person and sending local media into a frenzy over access to the scene that dispersed only when an IDF fighter screamed overhead and people ran for cover.

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But the Afghan people at the scene two weeks ago didn't see an accident, according to witnesses and local media reports. They saw irresponsible behavior by an occupying army that had no respect for Afghan lives. Rumors spread that it was intentional. They began pelting the convoy with large rocks and whatever else was available in the dusty bazaar near the scene of the incident.

The rest of the details are murky. Afghan witnesses claim the U.S. soldiers opened fire on the crowd and killed half a dozen or more people. Other reports claim it was the Afghan police and Afghan National Army that did the firing into the crowd. But it doesn't matter, because within one hour, large crowds of angry Afghan youth -- reportedly egged on by various enemies of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai -- rampaged through Kabul, looting shops, attacking Western-affiliated companies and aid agencies and attempting to ransack nice hotels frequented by Westerners.

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On Saturday, someone tried to blow up Tariq Abu Rajab, the head of Palestinian Military Intelligence. Rajab's bodyguard, Ali Abou al-Hassira, died when the elevator he and his boss, a senior member of Fatah and a longtime Hamas enemy, were entering suddenly exploded. Eleven other people were wounded. Somehow, someone was able to place a nice big bomb loaded with ball bearings in an elevator in the headquarters of Palestinian Military Intelligence. Nobody even tried to blame the Israelis this time. The street's verdict: This was Hamas all the way.

The badly wounded Rajab had to be evacuated to a hospital in Israel. And the Hassira family held the normal Gaza funeral, marching around with the body and firing AK-47s in the air. The newly installed Hamas security force wisely cleared the streets around the area to avoid a confrontation. Like many Fatah supporters, the al-Hassira clan hates Hamas, and they compared the new force in the streets to their archenemy.

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In Israel's northern neighbor Lebanon, probably more than in any other Arab country, reactions to Sharon's critical illness range across the spectrum -- from hatred almost too deep to be expressed to open admiration. This gamut of emotions reflects the political, ethnic and religious complexity of this small country -- and, of course, Sharon's personal role in Lebanon's history. He masterminded Israel's disastrous invasion 23 years ago.

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For a province to be laughably remote to an Afghan says quite a bit, as the entire landlocked country, with its lack of paved roads or rail service, is nothing but isolated. It took an explanation of why I was going -- to take a look at rural poverty and whether it had improved since the advent of the new American-backed regime -- to wipe the incredulous look off his face. "You will see the poorest people who know nothing of the outside world there," he says.

Four years after the American invasion and the fall of the Taliban, and one year after the presidential election of Hamid Karzai, the massive international effort in Afghanistan has done little to improve the lives of ordinary people. While estimates of foreign aid run from $12 billion to $15 billion, the U.S. government ties all money for Afghanistan into the larger "global war on terrorism," which also covers operations in Iraq. What's clear in Kabul is that a lot of the money has ended up with commandos who can be seen driving around in expensive SUVs and living inside walled luxury compounds. Initial results from last Sunday's parliamentary election also suggest a disillusionment with reconstruction, as just over half of the country turned out to vote.

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A former Taliban commander turned candidate for parliament in the restive southern district of Zabul, Rocketi explains why the American invasion of Afghanistan has yet to turn as nasty as the Soviet invasion and occupation in the 1980s. Rocketi says that most of the Pashtun tribes in the south and the east of the country -- who formed the backbone of the Taliban movement that swept to power in the early 1990s -- do not support the neo-Taliban insurgents who have killed more than 70 U.S. troops this year, making 2005 the bloodiest year for the U.S. since the 2001 invasion.

"Most of the Taliban [still fighting] had their own government regimes and power and lost them to the American invasion," he says. "So they want to fight to get the power back but they get no support from the people because [when they were in power] they acted too hard and selfish. They also killed many innocent people, so the people, they hate them."

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The mostly young people smoking cigarettes and playing guitars in the tents clearly come from privileged backgrounds; they speak French and English to each other as much as they do Arabic. In his speech reacting to the protests, Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed the movement as inconsequential, saying that if the television cameras would only "zoom out" there would be no problem. But the mass opposition demonstration last Monday -- as many as 1 million people may have turned out -- proved he was wrong.

Less than 50 meters away from the tents, in the shadow of Lebanon's largest mosque (financed by Hariri himself), a constant stream of mourners visit the gravesite. They come from all over Lebanon, young and old, rich and poor, Christian, Druze and Muslim. Clearly, this is no "Gucci revolution" of only Beirut's well-to-do.

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In the weeks after a mysterious explosion killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, thousands of people took to the streets, defying the Syrian-controlled government and blaming Syria for the killing. Over the weeks, the protests gained momentum, eventually forcing the resignation of pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami.

But then Hezbollah, which relies on Syrian support for its military wing (it remains engaged in a low-intensity struggle with the Israelis on Lebanon's southern border), reversed its policy of neutrality and threw its lot squarely with the Syrian presence in Lebanon and against U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559. The resolution not only calls for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon but also demands that all militias disarm -- a direct threat to Hezbollah's existence, or at least its current double existence as both political party and armed force. (Hezbollah was the only non-governmental organization allowed to keep weapons after the long Lebanese civil war ended.)

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Nasrallah reaffirmed that Hezbollah would not disarm, saying that "Lebanon needs the resistance to defend it." The Shiite-dominated group, which drove the Israeli army out of Lebanon after a 15-year guerrilla war, has been locked in a low-intensity battle with Israel along Lebanon's southern border.

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Women's rights activists are particularly disappointed by the election. "The results are disturbing indeed," offers Naba al-Barrak of New Hope for Women, an Iraq-based group. "People chose to vote for sectarian reasons, which is very sad." Her group had hoped that voters would find the liberal agenda of the more secular parties attractive, while also trying to break the Arab mentality of supporting one's tribe or clan over one's individual rights. Yet the portrait of the country that emerged from the election, she says, "is the face of tribal loyalties."

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The facts are as clear as their implications are not. The religious-backed Shiite party, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, won nearly 50 percent of the vote, a bit less than expected, while the Kurdish coalition received more than 25 percent, exceeding their most optimistic scenarios.

With the handpicked U.S. candidate, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, getting around 13 percent in a sharp rebuke, the election puts about 88 percent of the 275-member National Assembly in the hands of just three parties. This also means that about three-quarters of the seats will go to key Iranian allies -- the Shiite, who have a long history of support from Iran in defiance of Saddam, and the Kurds, who have depended on Iran for economic and military aid in their own bloody battles against Saddam's Baath regime.

American neoconservatives and President Bush might therefore need to rethink the idea that free elections in Iraq will result in liberty, egalitarianism and secular humanism in the Middle East. The election may end up spreading the Iranian influence that much closer to America's Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan.

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He is no gangsta run afoul of the law but an Iraqi translator for the U.S. Marines. Or was. This past fall he quit the job he loved after Iraqi insurgents passed sentence -- beheading with no chance of parole or appeal -- on him and his father, an outspoken Shiite who translates for a U.S. Army unit. Members of Jama'at al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad (One God and Holy War), the group headed by radical militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wrote the death threat in a letter and threw it in the front yard of Mohammed's family home in Baghdad.

"My mother went crazy when she saw it," he says. "But my father just changed to another unit and told the neighbors he quit. But guys were watching me and knew I still worked with the Marines."

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"Now the government is from us, the Iraqi people," says Nadeem Zubaydi, a 45-year-old shopkeeper in the Shiite neighborhood of Karada. "Before [the Governing Council] was not legitimate, because they came from outside Iraq, with the Americans."

His neighbor Hirsham, a cobbler, says that he and other Iraqis will respect the election's results even if their candidate or ticket does not win. "I will not be upset if my candidates do not win," he says. "With the winner, the people around him will have to discuss his decisions. And maybe say no and stop him from doing things."

The right to criticize his new government seems to mean most to Nadeem and other Iraqis. "When I talked before, I couldn't say exactly what I wanted," he continues. "Now I am sure that if I complain, the new government can find the solution."

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One Shiite voter, holding the hand of his 5-year-old son, told of his desire to show his son a democracy he had never before seen himself. "I want my son to see this," he said proudly. Like any other young boy, though, his son was impressed less by the arrival of a pluralistic society than by a tiny plastic flag that said: "Vote for Iraq."

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"Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!" says one ant, as zero gravity sucks him into the unknown.

This long-forgotten scene came to mind while I was flying in a turboprop airplane headed from Beirut, Lebanon, to Baghdad, where I have spent about 13 months since the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.

In that time, I have learned a lot about Iraq, Iraqis, Islam, war, death and all the other lessons that come from covering a foreign war with massive consequences for key parts of the world. But two critical things I know about Iraq are: one, you can never predict what might happen next in this epic saga that has come to dominate the lives of millions and my own and, two, it can always get worse.

I cannot claim with certainty that the elections will not help stabilize the grave situation here in Iraq, but I can say that every month it deteriorates for Iraqis, journalists, aid workers and U.S. soldiers. Now, having seen almost every facet of their lives worsen under the American-administered occupation, the Iraqi people face an election in which "should I risk voting?" is the biggest question.

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