In Focus

As we Americans ponder the meaning of the recent presidential election results, the observations of the rest of the world range from undisguised contempt to consternation and even trepidation. Switzerland's French-language daily 24 Heures led its coverage with a banner headline, "Washington, We Have a Problem!" Italy, having elected its 58th government since World War II, added a jab of its own in La Republica: "A Day Worthy of a Banana Republic."

The Russian Federation's Central Election Commission had sent a delegation to observe the U.S. voting process. Its chairman, A. A. Veshniakov, commented November 9: "I was under the impression that U.S. elections were much more perfect." He claimed to be "surprised" that the world's most technologically sophisticated country could have such trouble counting ballots. "I did not know that such things could happen here."

In the London Times, Cuba's Fidel Castro accused Florida's Cuban exile community of creating "chaos" in America by perpetrating "fraud". Yet at the same time, Castro lamented the low voter turnout in the U.S., neglecting to mention that while Marxist countries and other dictatorships typically boast a 99.9 percent voter turnout, there is only one candidate per office, and that refusing to vote for the Party candidate is not an option.

The official Iraqi news agency decried the election results as a "comedy" created by a "pro-Israeli Jewish conspiracy". The newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, noted that American "electoral strings" are always pulled by Jews.

Meanwhile, however, on a far more somber note, Israeli and Palestinian leaders are following the election stalemate closely. Israel's leadership in particular is worried that the "knife-edge result" here might have severe repercussions for the turbulent mid-east region. Israeli analysts, for example, are reminding people that the last time Israel's Arab neighbors felt emboldened enough to militarily attack the Jewish State was in 1973, while the U.S. was struggling with the Watergate crisis and President Nixon was preoccupied, fending off calls for his resignation. They now fear that President Clinton, already a lame duck, may be so focused on the post-election fallout and legal maneuvering that any decision emerging from Barak's conferences with Clinton may be irrelevant.

Clearly, instability, or even perceived instability, in the United States is a vital concern for the entire world. Fortunately, we know that the Sovereign God of the Universe is, and forever has been and will be, in charge.