BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, November 10, 2006 Ayatollah SoDemocrats aren't the only ones declaring victory this week, Reuters reports from Tehran:
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in congressional elections a victory for Iran.
Bush has accused Iran of trying to make a nuclear bomb, being a state sponsor of terrorism and stoking sectarian conflict in Iraq, all charges Tehran denies.
"This issue (the elections) is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world," Khamenei said in remarks reported by Iran's student news agency ISNA on Friday.
"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."
This column is scrupulously nonpartisan, so we won't comment one way or another on Khamenei's view of the election--except to say we are hopeful that the Democrats will do everything possible to prove him wrong.
We Have Allies?"America's rejection of President George W. Bush's Iraq policy is a slap in the face for his allies," Reuters reports from London:
- Many analysts believe that [Donald] Rumsfeld's departure clears the way for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But ministers and world leaders have warned in recent days about the long-term result of abandoning the country.
- Jordan's King Abdullah said Iraq could end up as another generations-long conflict in the Middle East.
- Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would tell Bush "it would be against everybody's interest, except the terrorists, for the coalition to leave in circumstances of defeat."
- And commentators in Poland, one of Bush's closest allies on Iraq, did not anticipate a major shift after the U.S. vote.
- Mainstream parties on the right and left in the biggest ex-communist EU member backed the war in Iraq and continue to see the United States as a key ally.
- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said his country would keep its troops in Iraq for the time being.
- "Danish foreign and security policies are decided in the Danish parliament and not in the United States," he told reporters, playing down the impact of the vote.
So it turns out America has allies in Iraq after all! It's amazing what comes out after the election.
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