November 8, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 2,1423

WASHINGTON: After an unprecedented victory for the ruling Republican Party in the mid-term elections on Wednesday, the world braces itself to deal with a triumphant American president who may now become even more assertive in implementing his foreign policies.

“President George W. Bush can (now) claim a potent new mandate for an assertive foreign policy whose unilateralist America First implications have disconcerted friends and foes alike,” says a prominent British political commentator Martin Walker.

“We are dealing with a power that has no limit in its dealing with foreign issues,” said Mohammed Shaker, head of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Relations, whose wariness of a Bush administration unrestrained by any other branch of government was widely shared beyond US shores.

The party’s control of the White House and Congress could lead to hastened military action against Iraq, worried other Arab commentators.

“The possibilities of waging war on Iraq are now greater than ever,” said Saudi political analyst Khaled al-Ghamdi.

However, there are two places, Kuwait and Israel, where the increase in the possibility of a US military offensive against Iraq has been welcomed.

“The news made me very, very happy,” says Fouad al-Hashem, a columnist for Kuwait’s Al-Watan newspaper. “It means that a strike on Iraq is not in the realm of rumour and hearsay anymore ... Now we just have to count the days for when the Iraqi people and the whole area will be saved.”

In Israel, new Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked his own return to government by asserting the Bush administration’s latest “roadmap for peace” was “not on the agenda.” Netanyahu also told Israeli TV on Wednesday he thought the attack on Saddam would be a good time to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, despite earlier promises from Israeli premier Ariel Sharon to President Bush that Arafat “would not be harmed.”

Diplomats in Washington, while noting that the executive branch was always in charge of foreign policy, suggested that the Republican majorities in Congress would give the Bush administration even more self-assurance in foreign policy, and add weight to its more hawkish voices and weaken the doves.

Other diplomats suggested the United States would become tougher to deal with on international issues and was likely to be more dismissive of the United Nations and cooler to traditional allies like Germany and France that are now perceived as critics of the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq.

On the whole, diplomats seem to expect a change in tone coming from Washington rather than any dramatic new shifts in policy. The executive branch always runs foreign policy, aside from big issues like war or peace or the ratification of treaties. And on the main issues, like threatening war on Iraq or the new national security doctrine that authorizes pre-emptive strikes, have already been decided.

In Asia, officials were trying to assess what the elections could mean for their region. Taku Yamasaki, secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, concluded that America’s war on terrorism would continue even more forcefully, since the Republican victory “confirms that public opinion remained united behind the Bush administration’s policy.”

“In terms of foreign policy, Mr Bush would gain much more leeway in dealing with the war on terrorism and the Iraq threat,” said Singapore’s Straits Times.

In South Korea, some commentators saw the election result strengthening Bush’s hands if he decided to get tough with North Korea over its admission that it was enriching uranium with a view to developing nuclear weapons. But they also feared the Korean issues might be on the back burner, after Powell called Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong on Wednesday and said he had to cancel a planned visit to South Korea next week because of “unavoidable circumstances” related to the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq.

In Europe and the Middle East, media comment seemed to expect a tougher line coming from Washington over Iraq, with an agreed resolution in the UN Security Council said to be very close.

“The prospect of waging war on Iraq looks to be increased,” Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV said on Wednesday.

“Not quite elected in 2000, Monsieur Bush sees his political base reinforced by a remarkable electoral success that offers him an even greater freedom of manoeuvre in his strategy towards Iraq,” commented France’s leading daily, Le Monde.

“The big loser of these elections, apart from the Democrats, is none other than Saddam Hussein,” commented the left-wing French daily Liberation. “An election setback for Bush would have been inevitably interpreted as a rejection by the American people of his threatening rhetoric against ‘the axis of evil’ whose pivot lies in Baghdad. Bush can thus henceforth claim a strong mandate of popular support for his politics of enforced disarmament of Iraq, and also in his dealing with the UN.”

“The results staggered many pundits who saw Bush as a dimwit who had become president through good fortune and a court-managed technicality,” said The Times of India on Wednesday. “The president appeared to have erased that stigma. Pundits and pollsters saw the results as an affirmation of the American people’s faith in George Bush in the face of the challenges he is facing. They also surmised that the events of 9/11 had a profound effect on America despite previews suggesting the elections would be based on local issues.”