– Islam Wins Big...in America

Relief in Mideast over rejection of hawkish policies
Money Central MSN

All Financial Times NewsIt is hard to find anyone in the Middle East who laments the fate of Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing US defence secretary, or regrets the defeat of the Republicans in elections to the US Congress this week.

Relief, that America may be coming to its senses, has washed over the region.

"There is no check on America today except inside America. The outside world is helpless whether it's Europe, Russia or China," said Abdulhaleq Abdullah, professor of public policy at Dubai University.

"It was about time the American people stepped in and took control of their own fate. For a while there was a hijacking of American will by the neo-cons. They were very dangerous people who took over. I hope this will bring back some sanity."

But relief is tempered among many analysts. A divided, and therefore more cautious, political system in Washington may be less likely to create new problems – a notable concern has been the prospect of Washington striking at Iran over its nuclear policy. But it is equally unlikely to proffer new solutions to the Middle East's mounting troubles.

Many in the region are celebrating the defeat of George W Bush's party not so much because the Democrats might bring something better, but because it represents the waning fortunes of his assertive policies amidst rising US voter concern over the chaos in Iraq.

Mr Rumsfeld's scalp has been variously portrayed in the Arab press in the hands of an Iraqi insurgent and under the foot of a Republican elephant.

From Iraq, a purported video posted on the internet yesterday of the leader of al- Qaeda's wing said: "The enemy is now wobbly. Today they are loading their gear to flee".

Speaking to the Iranian student news agency, ISNA, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said American threats were "empty on an international scale" and "US failures in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan" were evidence of its "much weaker position…than 10 or 15 years ago".

"This issue [the elections] is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world."

Officials in US-allied Sunni regimes where Mr Bush's belief in democracy has proved awkward, may only briefly share such relish.

"A lot of people feel happy. I don't," said Abdel Monem Said, the director of the Al Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies in Cairo. "Although I disagree with Bush's foreign policy, having a constrained American policy is not happy news for the Middle East either because somebody else will come to fill the vacuum."

He and other analysts believed, however, that the Bush administration was likely to take a less aggressive tone in the region.