For the past few years, the "international community" has built its policy vis-a-vis the United States on an assumption that Bush, that uncomfortable aberration from Texas, would be a one-termer. Walled in inside their own echo chamber, reinforced and amplified by the American mainstream media's anti-Bush stance, foreign governments have managed to convince themselves that no incumbent could survive electoraly the "quagmire" of Iraq abroad and the groundswell of opposition at home. In other words, the leaders from Caracas to Paris, and from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, made the assumption that since they wouldn't vote for Bush, and the "New York Times" wouldn't vote for Bush, the American people wouldn't either - that is, for all the sophisticates' sneering about America and the Americans, the "unwilling" governments around the world thought that in the end the US voters would behave as "rationally" as the Belgians or the Jordanians would in these circumstances.
It was not to be. George W Bush has been clearly and convincingly re-elected and his policies at home - and most importantly abroad - re-endorsed by the majority of the electorate. And France, Germany, the EU, the UN, and all others are stuck with W in the White House for the next four years. Going back to the good old days of doing nothing and doing it all together is no longer a possibility.
Arthur Chrenkoff, chronicling the congratulatory statements of various nations around the globe (including France, Germany and Russia), who are re-thinking their past hostility and are now cozying up to President Bush.
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