Finally, a new wind (of change) from the West

If for the last six years and more, precisely since 9/11, some of us (maybe many) were plausibly beginning to think that Americans were getting perilously close to deserving the term "daft" to describe their electoral preferences, last week's mid-term elections are a welcome apology (in its etymological sense) by an electorate that has sent a clear and unequivocal rebuttal to it's President.

The Bush Jr. administration will be remembered by history for the way in which it levied war against the terrorist matrix of the 21st century, choosing to fight an invisible enemy with the use of very conspicuous military means and uniformed soldiers (even the rocket scientist's lab cleaner saw the nonsense in that) and for the way in which it dissipated a vast political capital (cynically) it enjoyed immediately post 9/11, founded on the sympathy and support of most nations, in unbelievably shortsighted foreign policy that has vented more international unrest, rendering the shores it administers more insecure and turning the country it governs from victim to oppressor.

This administration's disarray in foreign policy was tragically fated since inception. Elected on a programme that promised isolationism, we got (through necessity, one may argue) a President that has put his finger everywhere. Within a year from election, an administration that had no foreign policy reacted to 9/11 by concocting one. The dismal results that are before our eyes are a reflection of the shortsightedness that characterises this administration's politics in the international arena. This reactionary trait that has characterised US foreign policy over the last six years is unbecoming of the lofty sounding ideologues, known as the Neo Cons, that apparently sit behind George W. Bush's throne. Donald Rumsfeld's departure means that the more realistic (actually so called) wing of the Republican Party has now moved closer to the epicentre of power. Let us hope that this new and welcome influence serves as a palliative for the painful mistakes Mr Bush has made to date and that in November 2008 the American people apply themselves again to definitively amputate the anomaly that currently sits within the Oval Office - if not for their sakes, for the sake of the other five plus billion that inhabit the planet.