The significant victory scored by the Republicans in the US mid-term elections has greatly strengthened George W. Bush’s presidency and will make him all the more powerful both at home and abroad. In the aftermath of these elections, we must assess the new political situation in America and ask: What does it mean for us?
Right up to the elections, the president pursued an aggressive and single-minded foreign policy in which he put American interests above all others and the new concepts of the “war on terror” and the “axis of evil” allowed America to name its “enemies” at will and to pursue them wherever they were. While this policy succeeded in making America deeply unpopular abroad, it provided the Bush administration with a convenient smoke screen to keep the American people from focusing on the failures of the American economy.
The high voter turnout and the swing to the Republicans can best be interpreted as a sign from the American people that in this time of crisis they will back the president. Though the people may believe they are giving Bush the democratic mandate he requires for his “war on terror” and for an attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, they are likely to discover that their president has other plans.
Having a majority in both Congress and the Senate, Bush is now in a far better position to turn his attention to domestic issues. He will have learnt from his father’s bitter experience, following the success of the 1991 Gulf War, that no matter how successful he is in the international arena, his re-election as president depends on his achievements at home. We can thus expect Bush to change his priorities. Instead of entering an expensive conflict with Iraq, the outcome and consequences of which are uncertain and which has never been proven necessary, he will look to revitalizing the American economy. The questions that will therefore preoccupy him before the presidential elections in two years’ time will be how best to turn the economy around so that he can achieve the essential ingredients for his own re-election: More jobs, increased trade, a robust economy and sustained growth.
After the fears and uncertainty of the past year, shared by all the nations of the Middle East and those countries that have been subject to America’s attentions, we should take hope from Bush’s electoral successes and be encouraged that the prospect of war may have diminished. We should also encourage America to concentrate on its economy and domestic issues. This will be easier if we in the Middle East can demonstrate to America that we are doing our best to set our own house in order and that we are diligent in our efforts to address American concerns.
An example of our willingness to do so was the recent decision by Syria — a hard-liner Arab state that has consistently resisted American intervention — to vote with other members of the United Nations Security Council for the American-brokered resolution on Iraq. The Arab League, at their meeting in Cairo on Nov. 10, unanimously supported this resolution. America should take encouragement from these events and recognize that the Arab world is moderating its position and adopting a more reasonable attitude with regards to international affairs.
The Arab world cannot ignore the consequences of Bush’s victories in the mid-term elections and at the UN, and should articulate, with a common voice, the positive results that have been gained from America’s endless talk of war. But we must not give America any reason to believe that it is still necessary to engage in war. First, we must do all that we can to strengthen the ties between the members of the Arab League to reverse its drift toward fragmentation. Secondly, in order to ensure that clear and open dialogue is maintained, the Arab League should nominate a maximum of two foreign ministers to go to the US bearing the message that the Arab people share America’s desire for peace and economic prosperity.
To achieve peace we should reaffirm our willingness to work with America to eliminate the sources of terrorism, to solve the Palestinian problem once and for all, and to improve Arab-Israeli relations. As for prosperity, we should call for an economic conference between Arab, Europeans and Asian countries and the United States to see what we can contribute to the effort to restart the world economy.
Let us hope that we in the Middle East, and the world as a whole, will benefit from the results of these mid-term elections, and that a strong president will offer far greater chances for a peaceful resolution of issues that until now appeared to be leading us to war and economic stagnation.
Arab News Opinion 19 November 2002
