President George W. Bush was the first US president to call for an independent Palestinian state and has pledged that his administration, unlike its predecessors, won't shore up Arab dictators.
Many Arabs, though, complain he hasn't backed up such words with action. The second term that Bush won on Wednesday will be a second chance for him to show the region whether he means what he says about finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and shepherding in a new era of peace and democracy in the Middle East.
"The re-election of President Bush frees him from pressure ... to re-elect him again. Therefore, this strengthens hope for a [US] foreign policy in which Bush's name could be linked with achieving important things such as a solution to the Middle East crisis," Lebanese Information Minister Elie Ferzli Ferzli told the Future television channel on Wednesday night.
However, Bush does face angry suspicion. His support for a Palestinian state and for democratic reform "do weigh in, but I don't think they outweigh other issues on the Arab street," said Glen Johnson, executive director of the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University in Cairo.
Chief among Arab concerns is Iraq, toppled into chaos by a US-led invasion. Before the invasion, Bush had vowed Iraq would emerge as a model for Arab democracy.
US and Iraqi officials say elections there will go ahead in January. But amid almost daily kidnappings and car bombings, Baghdad secretary Samar Abdul-Ridha said she's afraid no US president can do much to help Iraq.
"We've lost faith in any one," Abdul-Ridha said.
While many doubt Bush is the man to fix Iraq, let alone usher in reforms elsewhere, Kuwaiti lawyer and human rights activist Salah al-Hashem was optimistic about Bush's push for more political freedom in the region.
"We know Bush's policy well and it is in our interest," al-Hashem said.
Sami al-Nisf, the press adviser to Kuwait's prime minister, also said Bush would be good for civil liberties in the Middle East.
Bush "has a democratic project for the area, which needs such projects," al-Nisf said, adding Bush was committed to elections in Iraq.
Kuwaitis were virtually alone among Arabs in welcoming the Bush victory as most Arab opinion makers had said Senator John Kerry would be better for the Middle East. Kuwaitis see Bush as the son of George H. W. Bush, the president who liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in the 1991 Gulf War.
"We Kuwaitis are happy about Bush's victory because we owe the Republican Party for liberating Kuwait and Iraq," said lawyer Najib al-Wugayyan, referring to the Gulf War and last year's toppling of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, whom Kuwaitis had long feared.
"We are happy. The American people made the right choice," said Kuwait University political scientist Ahmed al-Baghdadi. "Bush is a man capable of making decisions ... I hope he will win his war against terrorism and bring the terrorists in Fallujah to their feet."
On the Arab-Israeli conflict, despite his historic endorsement of a Palestinian state, Arabs see Bush as an unabashed supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"There is a need for US policy in the world to change, to push forward the peace process in the Middle East, stop house demolitions and bloodshed," Asma Khader, the Jordanian government spokeswoman, said on Wednesday.
In Syria, where US support for Israel is strongly resented, political analyst Imad Fawzi al-Shueibi said of Bush's victory: "I expect another nightmare for the next four years."
Former president Bill Clinton, spent his last days in office trying to broker a Palestinian-Israeli solution. That was seen as a bid by a second-term president to ensure he went down in history as a peacemaker.
Walid Kazziha, an Egyptian political scientist, said Bush, like Clinton, may now turn his attention to his legacy and focus new energy on the Mideast conflict. But Kazziha, who accused Bush of taking a "hands-off" policy on this issue so far, said he feared chances of a new attitude were only slight.
But Ahmed Khattab, a 20-year-old junior at the American University in Cairo, worried Bush would focus on his unrivaled power.
"He'll be a lot more bold in his actions in the Middle East. He'll put a lot more pressure on Iran, on Syria," Khattab said. "He's ignored the peace process ... and I think that will continue."
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
RSS