THE results of the mid-term elections in the US basically reflect the persistence of the 9/11 trauma among the voters, who attach a higher priority to the war against terrorism than to rising social and economic problems arising out of the Bush agenda.

The serious fall in the stock market and other discouraging features of the economy appeared to have resulted in a steep decline in the popularity rating of President Bush, whose 80-90 per cent approval rate had fallen to below 60 per cent. The threat of war on Iraq had produced huge demonstrations just before the election day. These appeared to signal resistance to the aggressive stance adopted by the hawks around George Bush.

The outcome of the mid-term polls, which have traditionally seen the popularity of the ruling party decline, were a surprise. That the electorate gave the Republicans control of both houses of Congress was a vote of confidence in President Bush, whose election in 2000 had not quite conferred a popular mandate on him. It may be recalled that he did not win a majority of the popular vote and got to the White House on the basis of what was termed a “court managed technicality”. Following the mid-term polls, the president is seen to have erased that stigma and reinforced his legitimacy.

Analysts took note that those who were presenting George W. Bush as something of a dimwit whose lack of intellectual depth was being ridiculed by TV talk shows proved to be out of touch with popular sentiment. As The New York Times pointed out editorially the day after the election, the Republicans had won on the basis of the personal popularity of Bush who had campaigned vigorously in several states, where critical seats were involved. The credit for securing Republican control of both Houses of Congress was given to him.

The Democrats, who were expecting the normal mid-term gains against the ruling party, blamed their humiliation on a “wave of patriotism and support for Bush unleashed by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks”. As Senator Patty Murky, chairperson of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, stated, “Ultimately, we could not campaign with the power of the bully pulpit of a wartime president.”

Apart from the factor of popularity of President Bush, a significant boost to the Republican cause came from the fact that the party raised much more money than the Democrats did. Money plays an important role in an electoral system in which enormous amounts have to be spent on TV advertising and other means of mass contact. The primary appeal of the Republicans stems from the war Bush has launched against terrorism. The memories of 9/11 are still fresh, and the average American feels sufficiently threatened to want to strengthen the hands of the president in what is perceived to be a wartime situation.

Bush can now claim a mandate for a more assertive foreign policy that is unilateralist and, in putting America first, he tends to be dismissive of the UN. Since laying down the foreign policy objectives is basically an executive function, the control of the legislative branch will make only a marginal difference. Indeed, the main significance of the result is to strengthen the self-assurance of Bush and to add weight to the more hawkish elements around him.

The international reaction to the election results has been one of greater concern over the likely boost to unilateralism that has come to characterize the Bush policies. The probability of military action against Iraq appears greater, though the latest resolution adopted by the Security Council on Iraq’s disarmament will require the council’s authority for such action, in case Iraq does not meet all the demands of the UN weapons inspectors. However, the manner in which the military preparations are going on in the Gulf region suggest that President Bush and his closest advisers are intent on exercising the military option, by falsely accusing Saddam Hussein of lying or concealing vital information.

Such a course of action will only alienate the Islamic World and confirm the impression that the US is determined to humiliate it. Realism requires Washington to pay heed to the results of recent elections in major Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Turkey where Islamist groups have made significant gains as a reaction to America’s Muslim-bashing policies.

President Bush showed some sensitivity to the unease in the Muslim world in his remarks at the Iftar dinner he hosted for prominent Muslim Americans and ambassadors of Muslim countries, in which he disavowed any anti-Muslim bias. However, there is no mistaking the influence of the Zionists and conservative Christians on his administration. If the US does attack Iraq, the likely consequences in terms of redrawing of boundaries and US control of the oil resources of the region will certainly reduce the Islamic heartland to a position of subservience to the US.

Other aspiring beneficiaries would be Israel, which may even seek a final solution of the Palestine problem on its own terms, and India, which has a hegemonic agenda of its own in South Asia.

The major international players that are likely to watch out for the unfolding of US policies include the European Union, Russia and China, which are not comfortable with the key elements of US policies, including the Controversial national missile defence (NMD), and the Bush doctrine of pre-emption. The developing countries find the existing US-led international economic order to be widening the gap between the rich and poor countries, and when Washington shows itself wholly impervious to such problems, the prospects of any amelioration for the disadvantaged do not look too bright.

The Bush policies are guided by the conservative credo of letting the capitalist class make the highest possible profits, while cutting down on social security and other safeguards for the poor, to a point where a popular reaction may become inevitable. The federal deficit is rising, and other consequences of the ultra-rightist policies would have a truncating affect the resources available for education and Welfare and continue to be violative of environmental safeguards. All this is bound to affect the chances of Bush for a second term.

The overall conclusion drawn from the results of the mid-term elections is that the US public has acted out of concern for security, and continues to repose faith in President Bush who is seen to be conducting the war against terror quite effectively. However, two years down the line, when the next elections are held in 2004, this level of fear and insecurity is unlikely to be there. The economy is expected to remain in crisis, and the budget deficit may grow to over $400 billion, on the basis of present indications. The number of the absolutely poor is likely to grow, given the Republican policy of cutting down on welfare. In case the US occupies Iraq, the resultant military expenditures may exacerbate the economic situation, with higher unemployment and lower growth.

It is worth noting certain pointers and possibilities that may shape the electoral outlook decisively in 2004. According to opinion polls, 67 per cent of Americans favour a fair policy in the Middle East, and have serious reservations policy of blind support for Israel. There are 40 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance, and face growing difficulties as the resources for meeting their requirements contract owing to the growing deficit. There is bound to be greater public anger over the slashing of expenditure on education — another consequence of right-wing policies. New York state alone will face a $6 billion shortfall in resources to provide the social services that are its responsibility.

The hubris that characterizes the Republican approach under Bush, and which is reflected in the ambition to impose a power-based solution in the Middle East leads many thinking Americans to fear that the US might antagonize the rest of the world for years to come. A return to the more liberal approach that had produced phenomenal growth in the years following the Second World War and that gave birth to the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of war-ravaged Europe, is ardently desired by moderate Americans who worry about the damage the ultra-conservatives now in control may do to their country, as well as to the emerging world order. Many in Europe also share the view that a benign world order can be constructed only through a coalition between liberal America and a European Union that also follows a liberal philosophy.

FROM Washington waft the unmistakable odours of empire, the forging of a political unilateralism unprecedented in American — and indeed, in global — history, for its lack of serious challengers.

One government has become the world’s Ministry of International Virtue and Vice, and all the world’s second-rate states can only flee from its swelling rank of targets.

It has been several months now since President Bush announced his desire to go after Saddam, a desire all too clearly an imperialistic one, with little if anything to do with Bush’s stated reasons: Saddam is, for him, a demon, a darkness, the worst thing to happen to the world since Hitler, Osama’s cousin and the like. But the silence in response to Bush’s mostly wild allegations seems more disturbing still.

It seems to represent the most dangerous confluence of factors: American nationalism, coupled with right-wing religious rhetoric (more often soft on the religion and hard on rhetoric, tinged with meaningless Islam-bashing extremism), hardcore military hardware and lack of political, economic and ideological contenders to the American behemoth.

This is true even in America, as the Republicans’ opposition, the Democratic Party, is simply unable to produce any meaningful alternative to Bush’s policies.

It seems whenever a Bush family member takes to political theatre, one only has to read his lips: “Liar, liar,” as they say. Bush campaigned for presidency under the banner of humility, compassionate conservatism, modesty — all things he most decidedly does not represent. Fool me once and it is your fault. Fool me twice and it is my fault.

The problem with the Muslim and Arab world, as well as much of the rest of the world, lies in its inability to formulate a constructive agenda to deal with the threats against it. Rather, the inconsistency of American foreign policy is denied, ignored or condoned.

That Saddam Hussein is being charged with building weapons of mass destruction, by the very same country that holds the world’s largest stockpile of them, is the height of hypocrisy. If chemical gas fell on Kurds in Halabja, what fell on the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: weapons of acceptable destruction? No international order can survive in which the country that creates, funds and sustains tyrants, is given the right to judge the tyrant, or be his jury, or be both. But that is where we are heading.

America sold Saddam Hussein his deadly weapons because it was in America’s interest to resist Iran. Now, America will increasingly ally with the people of Iran, many of whom are fed up with their government (often for good reason) against the people of Iraq.

Ignoring all patterns of the past, some will accept this. Regional governments will promote this. And the people who understand will sit on the sidelines, dumbfounded.

In the 1980s, the Kurds did not matter, sitting though they did on underground oil reserves (which often bring more punishment than profit). But now, because of the new map of the world, the Kurds have been upgraded to temporary relevance.

This means that, in this brief window of opportunity open to them, they will be recognized as human beings with rights to their own and genuine needs and wants.

But soon the Kurds will pass out of the wind screen of America’s changing interests, replaced by other pawns in a game that has been continuing in our part of the world for far too long. If it is not obvious to many, this must be said: Bush is not going after Saddam for oil, for control, for the sake of Israel even.

These are perhaps parts of his plan, but not its main components. America seeks power. Power demands control. And democracy offends those who seek control.

If, indeed, we could have an immoral calculus, it would be programmed at the Pentagon. What we face now is a war to prevent the formation of democracy. Nothing is more dangerous to the interests of the oil barons, to madmen and their dreams of ever-lasting monopolies than the right for a people to exercise a vote.

Iraq’s oil belongs to Iraq. Saddam may pass out of the stage and Iraq may be freed of him. But if America invades, the Iraqi people will replace one brutal and nasty tyrant with a new one, whose stay will not be marked by the spilling of blood but by the spilling of oil.

Either way, the Iraqi people will not decide their destiny.

The European Stability and Growth Pact is a name so soporific that it should never be spoken aloud while operating heavy machinery. But let the president of the European Commission say that he thinks it is “stupid”, and suddenly it is on everybody’s lips — renamed as the ‘Stupidity Pact’. Which tells you something about how popular it is.

Last week Pedro Solbes, the monetary affairs commissioner of the European Union, launched disciplinary action against Germany for running a budget deficit higher than is allowed under the Stability Pact. His aim is to protect the EU’s new and still shaky common currency, the euro, and Solbes is cutting Germany no slack just because it is Europe’s biggest economy. As he said last month: “I take it as the most crucial part of my duty to work as the guardian of the economic and monetary framework which governs the single currency.”

On the other hand, Germany is in the midst of an economic slump: with over 4 million unemployed, tax revenues are down and welfare payments are up. That is why it is heading for a 3.8 percent budget deficit this year — and cutting government spending during the downturn just to get back within the Stability Pact’s 3 percent limit will just make matters worse. It’s over half a century now since John Maynard Keynes pointed out that you should raise government spending during a recession in order to put more spending power into people’s hands.

It is that 3 per cent cap on the deficit that caused Romano Prodi, the European Commission’s president, to utter his famous remark last month: “I know very well that the Stability Pact is stupid, like all decisions which are rigid.” As soon as he said the magic word, the pact’s fate was effectively sealed (though it may take some time to die). It became the ‘Stupidity Pact’ to every journalist in Europe, and you can never recover from a label like that.

Prodi didn’t retreat when he addressed the European Parliament late last month, either: “enforcing the pact inflexibly and dogmatically, regardless of changing circumstances, is what I called — and still call — stupid.” He is like the boy who dared to tell the truth about the emperor’s new clothes, and now practically everybody in the bigger EU countries wants to loosen up the restrictions that the Stability Pact places on deficit spending and government borrowing during a recession.

The irony is that it was the Germans who insisted on the Stability Pact in the first place, as the price for giving up their beloved deutschmark. There was more than a bit of racism in this: their concern was that the feckless, free-spending Mediterranean members of the EU (the Italians, Spanish, Greeks and other lowlife) would undermine the value of the new common currency by running up huge budget deficits. It never occurred to the Germans that they might one day need to run a big deficit themselves for a while.

The Stability Pact requires all twelve countries using the euro to keep their budget deficits below 3 percent even in the depths of a recession, with hefty and recurring fines for countries that breach the limits. (That whirring sound you hear is Keynes spinning in his grave.) Over the longer term, governments in the euro zone are required to keep their budgets at least in balance, or in surplus if possible. No wonder Pascal Lamy, one of France’s two European Commissioners, recently described the pact as “medieval”.

The Mediterranean lowlifes bravely struggled to get their budget deficits down within the limits, explaining to their harassed taxpayers that the sacrifice was worth it because they’d be trading their shabby old pesetas and drachmas for a shiny new euro. Greece is now running a budget surplus (the only other EU country to reach that promised land is Finland), and Spain has joined most of the smaller northern European members with a deficit of under one percent.

With growth sluggish all over Europe, Italy and Portugal are now at or just over the 3 pre cent limit on the budget deficit, just as the Germans feared — but so are France and Germany itself. So suddenly Germany and France have begun to understand the problem with the Stability Pact. Together with Italy, they account for three-quarters of the euro-zone economy, so with equal abruptness the question of reforming it is on the table.—Copyright