Why the Bush victory shouldn't be such a surprise

MOST Democrats were depressed on Wednesday when Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry picked up the phone at 11 a.m. and called President George W. Bush to graciously concede the election. Many had thought that this election would be a referendum on Bush's performance abroad, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that perhaps a plurality of Americans would vote for a change in command midway through the war on terror. We were all proven wrong of course, with Bush garnering a record 51 percent of the popular vote, and a majority of the Electoral College votes. As much as some Democrats wanted problems with provisional ballots in Ohio to be the Florida basket case of this election, it just didn't happen.

Record numbers of Americans turned out to vote both at home and abroad via absentee ballots. An estimated 121 million people cast votes, turning on its ear the prediction that a high turnout would favor the Democrats. It just didn't happen.

Undoubtedly, the Bush victory has deflated many Arab-Americans and Muslims who hoped that a change in leadership could perhaps change the perceived anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias of the US war on terror. What many people don't realize is that after the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, the majority of Americans support a tough approach to terrorism around the globe, even if that means sometimes trampling on the civil rights of some people.

An unstable Iraq, where more than 1,000 US soldiers have been killed since the US invasion in 2003, and a US economy that's not doing so well, were not enough to dislodge Bush from the White House. What many foreign observers forget when they view the US is that it is quite a conservative and religious nation. Most Americans are anti-abortion, don't support gay marriage, want fewer taxes, and are family oriented and go to church regularly. The wildly liberal and violent image of Americans that Hollywood and US TV shows export to eager viewers worldwide is a somewhat skewed and misleading vision of the American way of life.

Just look at the red and blue electoral map of the United States: The Democrats won states on each coast (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Oregon and Washington), and in the Midwest (Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota). The rest of America, which is more rural and conservative, was a solid sea of red.

I'm against the misleading tax cuts that Bush keeps pushing on gullible working class Americans, when in reality they have so far only helped those earning more than $200,000 a year. The miniscule tax refund checks that averaged $300 per household last year, hardly made a dent in taxpayers' pockets and on the economy. That, plus the fact that the country is sinking into record debt, and Bush hasn't told us how a reform of Medicare or the occupation of Iraq will be funded.

I'm also against the go-it-alone cowboy approach of the Bush administration when it comes to US foreign policy. If George W. had been more willing to build international alliances on Iraq before the invasion, and perhaps even share some of the decision-making powers with a coalition of partners, perhaps the US wouldn't see itself in such a mess today in Iraq. I'm also against the push by some Bush supporters to blur the line that separates church from state. The strict separation of church and state is one of the many things that make the US as great as it is. Bush's religious beliefs that he so proudly carries on his sleeve, though that may please millions of evangelical Christians, is disturbing for a person like myself who has always counted on the US being a secular country where all religions are allowed to be practiced or not according to the beliefs of each individual.

The only glimmer of hope that I see in the second Bush administration is that the pressure for democratic and economic reforms in the Middle East will continue, much to the consternation of all autocratic regimes in the region.

While many believe that Bush invaded Iraq just for the oil, there is growing evidence that he may have also done so to permanently improve the Middle East. After the fact emerged that the 19 hijackers who slammed US passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were Arabs, many in the Bush administration realized that decades of coddling regional dictators coupled with a resurgent Islam and stagnant economies had created the monster of Al-Qaeda and its millions of supporters across the Muslim world.

Enemies of the US, who envy its success and freedoms, want it to fail in Iraq, as if it succeeds it would set an example for neighboring countries that Arab governments would find hard to resist.

I only hope that Bush tries to govern the country over the next four years as the president of all Americans, and tries to heal the deep divisions that Sept. 11 and America's response to it have created both among Americans and across the globe.

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at rasheed@arabnews.com