We must say, from the perspective of our region, it is a no-brainer, that Sen. Obama, D.Ill, remains a far preferable choice to Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., as the next president of the United States.

We also believe that Obama was the effective winner of Tuesday's debate. He was by far the more relaxed and authoritative of the two in his body language. And he did not go mean to the same extent that McCain did.

Having said that, however, the entire debate was a desultory, low spirited one. Neither man's heart appeared to be in it. Neither of them showed any real fire in their bellies on any of the key issues.

The Obama who so carefully watched his Ps and Qs Tuesday was a far cry from the dynamic, optimistic, bold and energetic figure who bestrode our region only a few short months ago. That Obama vastly impressed almost every leader he met from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq and King Abdullah II of Jordan to U.S. Gen. David Petraeus.

Perhaps the long campaign has just ground Obama down. Or perhaps – and more ominously – he, like McCain, really doesn't have a clue what to do about the financial crisis that has capsized Wall Street and that is now spreading with tsunami-like speed and devastation across the entire world.

One thing we can certainly say: Neither Obama nor McCain, if elected president, will be free to carry out any of their more ambitious schemes to around our region. The primacy of dealing with the great financial melt-down will consume their main energies. And that may be no bad thing.

McCain, therefore will have better things to do than plot some massive preemptive series of air strikes on Iran. The weakness of the dollar and the need of the United States to secure the economic and financial cooperation of Saudi Arabia, not to mention Russia, China and the major European nations, will hedge against that.

In Obama's case, the enthusiasm for "democratic reform" and human rights – too often political code-words for undermining America's historic Arab allies in the region and giving dangerous opportunities to extreme Islamists instead – will be undercut by the need to slash costs and focus on home and financial problems first and foremost.

Anyone who doubts that such ill-judged initiatives would indeed be pursued by the next Democratic administration should read "The Road Out of the Desert" – an ambitious, highly interventionist Middle East strategy first published by the highly influential Kenneth Pollack, director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.

The fact that the great crisis may deter both McCain and Obama from the traditional disastrous courses of both their parties in our region may provide at least one silver lining to the dark economic clouds that now cover us all.