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With a Handful of Exceptions,
Most See Results as Dispiriting
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service / page A44
November 4, 2004

Canada: "How could they?"
"Totally bizarre" and "outdated," says spokesman for the Paris-based
Foundation for Strategic Studies..

LONDON, Nov. 3 -- Much of the world went to bed Tuesday night hoping and
believing that John Kerry might win the White House but woke up Wednesday
morning to find President Bush -- the most internationally unpopular
American leader in decades -- on his way to a second term.

For many people outside the United States it was a dispiriting result that
underscored the deep rift in policies and perceptions that has opened
between the United States and many of its allies since Bush took office in
January 2001.

"America has missed a great chance to reunite with the world," said Graham
Allen, a member of the British Parliament from the ruling Labor Party. "I
fear the tragedy for all of us is that if America doesn't reach out to its
friends, then its enemies will reach out to America."

Political leaders in a handful of countries such as Russia, Italy, Britain
and Israel were enthused by the result, analysts said. But the large numbers
of people across the world who had dismissed the Bush administration as a
one-term aberration that had come to office illegitimately were stunned to
see the president win.

"It will confirm those who feel there's a difference in basic values between
the U.S. and Europe," said Charles Grant, director of the Center for
European Reform here. "Although we have many common interests and values,
when you get to things like religion, gun control and the death penalty, we
just live on a different planet."

Poll after poll taken abroad showed sizable majorities opposed to Bush in
virtually every country except Israel and Russia in a U.S. election that the
world watched more closely than any in recent memory.

In France, the center of opposition to the war in Iraq, Bush's victory
shocked many analysts. "The rest of the world has to face reality," said
Philippe Labro, a novelist and journalist who specializes in American
issues. "We have the same president in power, the same team and probably the
same policies. Both the U.S. and the rest of the world have to realize that
we need each other, because if we don't, we're all in trouble."

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, discussing U.S.-French relations,
told reporters that he looked forward to "putting our differences in the
past, and to future cooperation." Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany,
whose government also opposed the Iraq war, sent a letter of congratulation
to Bush, saying he looked forward to further cooperation on such issues as
terrorism, climate change and the environment. "These challenges can only be
tackled through joint effort," Schroeder wrote.

The U.S. election process raised many eyebrows abroad. Francois Heisbourg,
director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, called it
"totally bizarre" and "outdated." Le Monde newspaper expressed dismay in an
editorial. "What an example for a democracy to give to the world, electors
voting late into the night in Ohio, waiting for votes, faulty voting
machines, these unending recounts!" it wrote.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia welcomed the president's victory. "I'm
convinced international terrorism set the goal of preventing Bush from being
reelected," Putin said at a news conference in Moscow. The result of the
ballot, he said, showed "the American people haven't let themselves be
intimidated by terrorists and have made a decision that was appropriate."

"The Kremlin believes that a Republican administration will pay less
attention to Chechnya, democratic freedoms, civil rights in Russia," said
Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies in
Moscow. "This is very convenient for the Kremlin."

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, who has been an enthusiastic Bush
ally on Iraq and who was on an official visit to Moscow on Wednesday, said
"the continuation of Bush in American politics makes things easier for us."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose support for Bush has weakened his
popularity, sent his congratulations. But Blair pledged in Parliament
earlier in the day to press his American partner to revive efforts to
resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a means of helping defeat
international terrorism.

Officials in Israel welcomed the Bush victory. Zalman Shoval, an adviser to
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and a former ambassador to the United States,
said that the way the United States views "the dangers of the civilized
world, support for Israel is almost a foregone conclusion, because they see
us as part of the good guys."

Many Palestinians, by contrast, were wary. "The general reaction among
Palestinians is apathy," said Ali Jerbawi, a political scientist at Birzeit
University in the West Bank. "It doesn't make any difference whether the
president is Kerry or Bush, because support for Israel was the only thing
they agreed upon in the election."

Elsewhere in the Middle East, where the invasion of Iraq and the
administration's unflagging support for Israel have generated enormous
animosity, reaction was muted.

"On the popular level there is a very strong anti-Bush, anti-neocon
sentiment," said Mustafa Hamarneh, director of the University of Jordan's
Center for Strategic Studies, referring to the neoconservatives whose
beliefs are thought to underpin Bush's political philosophy. "Definitely,
people were hoping that Bush would be defeated, although not so much to see
Kerry win. They never saw much difference between them on the issue of
Israel-Palestine."

In Latin America, where many people feel the Bush White House has largely
ignored them since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, political leaders sent
congratulations. Mexican President Vicente Fox invited Bush for a state
visit. The president of El Salvador, Elias Antonio Saca, who has sent
hundreds of troops to Iraq, was trying to reach Bush by phone to
congratulate him, his spokesman said.

In Canada, which has been increasingly wary of the Bush administration's
policies, the government kept a polite silence while the airwaves in the
morning filled with the incredulous question of "how could they?" "Canadians
reflexively and ideologically have been more sympathetic to the Democratic
Party than Republicans running back at least 40 years," said Nelson Wiseman,
a specialist in Canadian politics at the University of Toronto. "The paradox
is that a Kerry victory possibly would have had more complicated
consequences for Canada."

Canada refused to send troops to Iraq, he noted, but under Kerry, an appeal
for a more multinational force would have been difficult to resist. "It's
much harder to say no to someone you've been cheering for than someone
you've been cheering against," he said.

Many Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad Wednesday expressed support for Bush.
"Regardless of what many say about him, he was firm and more decisive," said
Elham Abdul Wahhab, 55, a chemical engineer and mother of three. "Look, the
Democrats did not do anything for us. I wish Bush will win so he can follow
up on the reconstruction of Iraq, to finish what he began."

But Sinan Al Assaly, owner of a computer shop, dismissed both candidates.
"We do not trust anyone anymore," he said. "Bush before the war made many
promises of democracy, good life and so on, but nothing of that has been
achieved. Politicians are good at talking only."

Correspondents John Ward Anderson in Jerusalem, Peter Finn in Moscow, Doug
Struck in Toronto, Daniel Williams in Rome, Scott Wilson in Amman, Jordan,
Mary Jordan in Mexico City and special correspondents Alexandra Topping and
Maria Gabriella Bonetti in Paris, Khalid Saffar in Baghdad and Shannon
Smiley in Weisbaden, Germany, contributed to this report.