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World sees vote as start of new foreign policy
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'Bush is no longer acceptable'
People across the Mideast also reacted swiftly, saying it appeared the U.S. president had paid the price for what many view as failed policy in Iraq.
Most governments across the region had no official comment, but some opponents of the United States reacted harshly. “President Bush is no longer acceptable worldwide,” said Suleiman Hadad, a lawmaker in Syria, whose autocratic government has been shunned by the U.S.
Iranian state television blamed U.S. strategy in the Middle East for the change. "Experts believe that Bush's wrong strategy in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as financial corruption in the United States, was the main reason for the failure of Republicans in the midterm election."
Even some Iraqis voiced hope for change.
“We hope American foreign policy will change and that living conditions in Iraq will improve,” said 48-year-old engineer Suheil Jabar, a Shiite Muslim in Baghdad.
In Copenhagen, Denmark, 35-year-old Jens Langfeldt said he did not know much about the midterm elections but was opposed to Bush’s values. He referred to the president as “that cowboy.”
In Sri Lanka, some said they hoped the rebuke would force Bush to abandon a unilateral approach to global issues.
The Democratic win means “there will be more control and restraint” over U.S. foreign policy. said Jehan Perera, a political analyst.
Passions were even higher in Pakistan, where Bush is deeply unpopular despite billions in aid and support for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
One opposition lawmaker, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, said he welcomed the election result but hoped for more. Bush “deserves to be removed, put on trial and given a Saddam-like death sentence,” he said.
But while the result clearly produced more jubilation than jitters, there were deep concerns.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told broadcaster TV2 he hoped that the president and the new Congress would find “common ground on questions about Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“The world needs a vigorous U.S.A.,” Fogh Rasmussen said.
Worries in China
Some also worried that Democrats, who have a reputation for being more protective of U.S. jobs going overseas, will make it harder to achieve a global free trade accord.
The accord, said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, “is very important for the future of trans-Atlantic relations.”
And in China, some feared the resurgence of the Democrats would increase tension over human rights and trade and labor issues. China’s surging economy has a massive trade surplus with the United States.
“The Democratic Party ... will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor and that could produce an impact on China-U.S. trade relations,” Zhang Guoqing of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Sina.com, a popular Chinese Internet portal.
The prospect of a sudden change in American foreign policy could be troubling to U.S. allies such as Britain, Japan and Australia, which have thrown their support behind the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Democrats campaigned on a platform that demanded a change of direction in Iraq, and the war has lost the support of the majority of American voters.
“The problem for Arabs now is, an American withdrawal (from Iraq) could be a security disaster for the entire region,” said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi analyst for the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
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