Posted on 11/08/2006 2:09:50 AM PST by NormsRevenge
TOKYO - Democratic gains in Congress were seen around the world Wednesday as a rejection of the U.S. war in Iraq that led some observers to expect a reassessment of the American course there.
The shift in power also was seen as a signal in some capitals that the United States would put a greater emphasis on trade policy and human rights.
Many watching the election said the results were a significant blow to President Bush's presidency.
"Although his term will not end within the next year, I think Bush is already turning into a lame duck," Yuzo Yamamoto, 60, the manager of a Tokyo business consulting firm, said as Democrats won control of the House and challenged Republican dominance in the Senate in midterm elections Tuesday.
Outside observers saw the bloodshed in Iraq as the major driving force behind the Democrats' success.
"Voters have punished the Republicans. They are not happy with the way the leadership has handled the Iraq war," said Chandra Muzaffar, president of the Malaysia-based think-tank International Movement for a Just World.
Bush's foreign critics cheered in Vietnam, and in Muslim-dominated countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
"The Republicans lost in the election because the American voters are now fed up and bored with the war," said Vitaya Wisetrat, a prominent, anti-American Muslim cleric in Thailand. "The American people now realize that Bush is the big liar."
Echoing the sentiment of many in Muslim countries, Indonesian lawmaker Ahmad Sumargono hoped that the results would prompt a reassessment of American policies in Iraq and elsewhere.
"I am optimistic that American people have now realized the mistakes made by Bush in foreign policy. We hope this leads to significant changes, especially toward the Middle East," he said.
Abdul Hamid Mubarez, an Afghan analyst and former deputy Afghan information and culture minister, said he hoped that Democratic victories would lead to more reconstruction money for his war-torn nation.
The prospect of a sudden change in American foreign policy could be troubling to U.S. allies in Asia — such as Japan and Australia — that have thrown their vocal support behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Some, however, doubted that there would be a major shift in Iraq, said Michael McKinley, a political science professor at the Australian National University.
"There would have been some concern in policy making circles here if the Democrats had said, 'We are definitely going to withdraw by Christmas,'" McKinley said. "But they're not able to say that," he said.
"They will have concluded that it is unlikely to have radical significance in the area of U.S. foreign and strategic policy," he added.
U.S. policy on North Korea, which angered the world by testing a nuclear device on Oct. 9, is also high on the agenda in the region. Despite the test, Pyongyang has pledged to return to stalled six-nation talks on its weapons program.
While some in South Korea have speculated that a Democratic victory could erode Bush's hardline approach toward Pyongyang, others were skeptical.
Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Bush was unlikely to make radical changes in his policy in his final two years in office, particularly since the North was not a major campaign issue.
"Why should he change his policy line?" Kim asked, referring to Bush. "The Bush administration will feel no need for changes in the six-party talks."
Many around the world hoping for other changes in American policy said they hoped the election would be a catalyst.
In China, however, the resurgence of the Democrats raised fears of renewed U.S. concern 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, one of China's most popular Internet portals.
In Japan, the government said the results would not change Tokyo's warm ties with Washington.
But the shift in favor of the Democrats was expected to complicate Japan's diplomatic approach to the U.S. For years, the Japanese have been able to successfully woo Bush's White House, knowing that the Republican Congress would largely follow its lead.
Now that calculus would have to change, said Tsuneo Watanabe, senior fellow at Mitsui Global Strategic Studies Institute in Tokyo.
"Now it's time for the Japanese, the embassy in Washington, to spend more time on Congress," he said.
I hope they do impeach him. Put Pelosi in as commander-in-chief! Now that's a riot. But, seriously, I do hope they impeach Bush because it is now inevitable we are going down. Let the Demonrats bring us down.
Well, I'm glad this happened in 2006 and not in 2008.
We're not finished.
Not even close.
Who knows how many people will pay with their lives. That apparently is the price of wanting to continue in a state of denial. Reality always wins, like it or lump it.
We will fight for our survival when a city disappears.
This is where the Republicans will make Stepin Fetchit look like Conan the Barbarian. They deferred when they were in the majority and kept calling the RATS "Mr. Chairman," imagine how much they'll grovel now.
why ? That's what the republican party thinks. Mc Cain has to go on distance to W if he wants to run for President.
And he already did that by speaking out against the white house politics in the last years.
The dims will do nothing about immigration and those that stayed home deserve the Democrats.
Exactly right!
Look, the internuts are celebrating today. The Kos kids, the Huffnuts, and other various clowns. They don't have the long view. So let 'em carry on.
I spent election day with lots of GOP pols and GOP high rollers. One has to be philosophical about this and they were. There are two years for the GOP to get its act together and I think it can be done and we'll be back. Let's just see how Pelosi and Co. wears on the American people. Buyers regret may set in FAST.
Yes, you are correct.
It is time to bring all those who would be hurt by, or who hate, that desire of the new majority back into the party.
I think they lack even the votes to pass a bill of impeachment out of the House.
It was emphasized several times last night, that Pelosi and Emmanuel's strategy was to drive a stake through social conservatives' hearts by crying scandala, scandala!, a strategy that was temporarily derailed when Rep. Jefferson was busted with all that frozen cash. So then they changed gears and emphasized sexual scandals.
They also, on a parallel track, tempted moderates with a parade of moderate "Blue Dog" Democrat candidates, some of whom support RKBA and other 2A issues, e.g. -- Nick Lampson, who will succeed Tom DeLay and who was in the Congress for several years, was endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
(Long history here: it was Lampson's predecessor, old-line conservative Democrat Jack Brooks, who "accidentally" let Clinton slide his assault-rifle ban out of Brooks's committee and into law in 1994, hoping his constituents wouldn't notice. But they did, leading directly to the loss of Brooks's southeast-Texas seat to GOP neophyte Steve Stockman, who later lost it to Lampson. After a couple of rounds of re-districting, which btw deliberately swept more Dems into DeLay's old district, in order to "maroon" them the way I'm marooned in that damned Sheila Jackson Lee's district, Lampson wound up living in DeLay's district, and challenged him when DeLay got into trouble.)
Its been my tagline for weeks.
Bush is screwed beyond comprehension.
How do you explain all of the hard line house immigration members losing?
What I seek is
Imigration Amnesty
Pelosit pandering to pedophiles
Murtha Defunding the Militarty but funding military pork. (for his district)
The left now loves Diebold.
The sheeple are going to get a chance to see what socialists look like up close.
They won't like what they see.
I don't think the democrats can help themselves.
They will redefine "rich" to be anyone makeing more than 25,000 (twenty five thouseand(
They will push for homosexual agenda items like marriage. Even overturning the 1996 DMA.
Rumsfeld answering questions to the committee. Rumsfelf vs murtha, murtha is toast.
This is a step backward, but I don't see how the left wing lunacy of the democrats does not come to the top.
Some of the democrats are already waiting for the chance to pass immigration amnesty.
Remember, pelosi WILL pass the senate amnesty bill.
Democrats can't help themselves they are slaves to their leftist nature.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Knock it off.
Ain't gonna happen. It's political suicide. They have nothing to gain by not waiting 2 years for Bush to leave office naturally.
"The Democrats have "low hanging" fruit - many of them elected in GOP districts as a result of a protest against GOP corruption and betrayal of conservative ideals. Their conservatism is probably phony but they know if they have to toe the party line and go along with the hard leftist ideology of the party's leaders, it won't sit well with their constituents back home."
You make a good point. Several races here in Indiana went to the Dem when they were previously Pubs. They could easily go either way. Of course, that more the rule here.
It's going to be an intersting two years coming up.
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