Art of Elections

Interesting article "U.S. will push efforts to isolate Hamas, Rice says"

.....
Rice said the landslide had taken many, including Hamas, by surprise, but she also said it was prompting an internal review of sorts within the administration.

''I have asked why nobody saw it coming,'' she said. ''And I hope that we will take a hard look, because it does say something about perhaps not having had a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population, as opposed to elites in Ramallah and the like.''

Basically, had we known we would have lose (that is losing our corrupt friends), we would not have pushed for election. At some point someone can summarize all of these into Art of Election. This rule sounds very similar to a point in Art of War, By Sun Tzu


15. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist
only seeks battle after the victory has been won,
whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights
and afterwards looks for victory.


She goes on to say:

''When that happens, it's the responsibility and the role of - particularly the United States, but the international community more broadly - to stay very firmly planted in principle,'' she said. She also said the United States needed to ''make certain that everything that you are doing relates to that set of principles, so that you don't start flagging one way and another.''

It is more like two set of principals, one for "us" and one for "them".