Middle Eastern commentators yesterday crowed over the defeat of the Republicans in the mid-term elections in the US and were delighted over the resignation of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, writes Michael Jansen in Dubai
Tariq al-Majid, writing in the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, asserted, "the Republican hegemony" ended [ on Tuesday] and expressed the widely held view that the Republicans had been defeated by "the Iraqi resistance" and the failure of the US occupation enterprise.
Tishreen, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath party in Syria, took the view that Iraq "was the dominant factor" in the Democratic party's victory while the Saudi daily al-Watan called the election a "referendum on President Bush's Iraq policy". The paper said "it is clear that the American people have withdrawn their support . . . over the Iraq war".
But the Oman Daily warned against any thought of a precipitate US withdrawal from Iraq. Abu Umar, a field commander of an Iraqi secular resistance group, agreed with this assessment in a recent interview with the pan-Arab Alsharq al-Awsat. He argued that a timetable for withdrawal should be set but said that US troops were needed for one or two years to stabilise the situation.
Iran's Resalat held that the Democrats' success has "destabilised the White House" and "put an end to the hawks' dominance" in Washington. Tehran's conservative Keyhan called the result of the election "good news, not because the Democrats are better than the Republicans, but because [ the outcome] will cause tensions in the American system. When the Americans don't have problems inside their country, they create problems for other countries, so it is very good if they savage each other for a while."
While policy on Iraq was the primary focus of most commentators, some also dealt with the Bush administration's stand on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In an editorial published on the day after Israeli tank fire slew 18 Palestinians in Gaza, the Palestinian daily al-Quds stated: "The Republican defeat . . . is a defeat for President Bush's foreign policy . . . We hope this will lead to a review of the aspects of US foreign policy which many Americans oppose, including the blind bias in favour of Israel at the expense of Palestinian and Arab rights."
Palestinians and other Arabs blame the Bush administration for refusing to carry on brokering negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel which, during the last two months of the Clinton administration, seemed to be nearing a deal for sharing geographic Palestine.
Banner headlines announcing Mr Rumsfeld's resignation dominated the front pages of Arab newspapers, particularly in Iraq where he is blamed for the country's descent into chaos and conflict. The political editor of the authoritative al-Zaman said that Mr Rumsfeld's departure is "unlamented" and called for the removal of Iraqi figures he promoted.