John Rapley

First, the obvious: the Democrats are not going to take control of America's mid-east policy. Officially, nothing has changed. The U.S. Constitution gives the President considerable leeway when it comes to foreign policy. As commander-in-chief, he alone decides where to deploy troops.

Congress, which will be in Democratic hands come January, could refuse to pay them. But that would be a drastic measure, likely only as a last resort. The more probable scenario is the emerging one. The president will consult Congress far more than he has done, and will listen to discordant voices.

The U.S. will remain in Iraq, but the 'stay-the-course' steadfastness is now history. The first stop on this new course of action will be the report of the Iraq Study Group. This high-level group is exploring options for getting the U.S. out of Iraq, and the president will be taking their recommendations more seriously now. A rapid withdrawal is not likely on the cards, but a more aggressive commitment to an 'endgame' is.

In the short term, the Democratic victory will take a lot of heat off of Iran and Syria. But it would be over-simplifying to say that because Tehran has welcomed the outcome of the Congressional elections, a vote for Democrats has been a reward to America's enemies. There was little evidence that the U.S. hard-line in the Middle East was doing anything more than sink America deeper into a bog.

Mistaken conclusion

Equally, while it might appear that the results of the elections will come as bad news for Israel, this too would probably be a mistaken conclusion. Even though the White House remains as committed as ever to Israel, and thus supports Tel Aviv's desire to go back to war against Hezbollah, the Israeli government will feel it has less of a green light than it did before. Nevertheless, its 'weakness' is a consequence more of Israeli politics than of the U.S. elections: the Israeli government is already weak and under fire at home, precisely because its own hard line against Hezbollah was seen to have been so inept and ineffective.

Hezbollah - and no doubt its Iranian and Syrian backers - appears to be exploiting this opportunity to advance its interests. The surge in support it has enjoyed since the war with Israel, combined with the current unpopularity of the Lebanese government, has encouraged it to press for a stronger hand in Beirut. Lebanon's president is resisting Hezbollah efforts to gain an effective veto over the government. But for the time being, Damascus is no doubt pleased that its reversals in Lebanon might appear, at least for now, to have come to an end.

It does seem safe to say that, at least for the foreseeable future, the feared U.S. attack on Iran is off the agenda. Nevertheless, it would be mistaken to conclude that what we are seeing is a 'soft'' Congress reining in a head-strong administration. Certainly that is the way the White House, and particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney, tried to package the deal before the elections. But U.S. voters didn't buy it.

Besides, many of the Democrats coming into Congress are as conservative as the Republicans they replaced. They are angry mainly with the conduct of the war, but not necessarily its motives. The balance of power in the Middle East may have tipped, for the moment, slightly back towards Tehran and Damascus. But that is not because U.S. voters handed Iran and Syria a tactical victory. They merely accepted the new reality that U.S. foreign policy blunders have created, and are now trying to find better ways to deal with it.

John Rapley is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.