I think this is an accurate analysis about the impact in the Middle East of Bush's reelection

Just a tease from Zev Chafets' lengthier article about the effect George Bush's reelection may have on the world situation:

Bush's critics (including some self-interested Republicans) want him to admit that the war in Iraq has gone wrong by firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The immediate justification is equipment shortages, an issue that made headlines when a G.I. complained to Rumsfeld that he and his buddies had to rummage in scrap heaps to 'up-armor' their vehicles. The President has no reason to do this. For one thing, his policy in Iraq is not a failure. But it will be if he listens to his detractors. The U.S. can't lose a shooting war in Iraq. Its military might is too great. But insurgencies are fueled by optimism. The hope of the jihadis and Saddamites is that they can persuade Americans that this war, like Vietnam, is unwinnable. Bush's job is to take that hope away by making America's enemies, in Iraq and beyond, believe that the U.S. cannot and will not be stopped. Reelection helps. Nobody in the Middle East read the results as a vindication of Republican principles on gay marriage, abortion or Social Security reform. It was seen as a mandate for war. Bush is the strong horse, and he has been given four more years to run.