Jim Hoagland points out that Obamamania isn't a worldwide phenomenon:
In Asia, trade is the biggest dividing line of the campaign and works in McCain's favor. Both China and Japan have settled into a comfortable relationship with Bush and give his administration high marks for its Asia policy and for promoting free trade. They would expect McCain to continue this pattern and fear that victorious Democrats would disrupt it, I was told in Tokyo. India's political leaders seem to share those concerns.Obama did little during his meticulously choreographed Middle East stops to dispel worries in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere that he will be at least as pro-Israeli as McCain -- and more likely to quit Iraq, and to engage Iran, without regard to the effect those actions would have on the region.
"For us, he is high risk for sure, high gain only maybe," an Arab diplomat told me. "Anyway, the United States could elect Osama bin Laden as president and American Middle East policy would not change. It is that locked in for Israel."
So when it comes right down to it, Europeans and (presumably) Africans worship Obamessiah. Everyone else, not so much.
Jul 27, 08 08:44 AM