BERLIN -- In looking at how the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States could affect the Middle East, I am firmly of the belief that to find the answer one need look no further than the way he ran his stunningly successful campaign. By far, it was the most professional, strategically mapped and brutally well-managed two years that any politician could design, with a potent mix of inspiration and perspiration tapping into the Zeitgeist [spirit of the time].

PARIS -- Condoleezza Rice, U.S. secretary of state in the outgoing George W. Bush administration, has this week paid yet another of her pointless visits to the Middle East - her eighth in the past year since the Annapolis Conference of November 2007 - and very probably her last. The mystery is why she has bothered to come to the region, again and again and again. She has been indefatigable, but totally ineffectual.

This is a day that no living American (and many in generations to come) will forget; namely, the election on Nov. 4 of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

BOSTON, Ma, USA -- I am writing this column Tuesday morning as Americans vote in their presidential election. Wednesday morning we should know who wins, and Americans can be proud of another quite spectacular exercise in electoral democracy. Nowhere else in the world does a national leadership achieve incumbency by going through such intense, sustained – and at times silly - scrutiny by the media, local political and social institutions, and – most importantly of all - daily, direct contact with the voting public. Yet, there is a dark side to American political culture that we experience alongside its wondrous aspects, which the electoral campaign exposed in all its ugliness.

A series of meetings between United States and Syrian diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at the United Nations last week are stirring speculation that Washington may at last be moving toward engaging Damascus.

Back home in the sub-continent, they say you should always stay away from the cops; their friendship as well as adversity is bad for ones health. I am reminded of the advice as the worlds chief cop, the United States, bombs its allies and friends in Pakistan. With friends like these, do you really need enemies?

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- What luck for rulers that men do not think, said Adolf Hitler. The Fuhrer should know. After all, he proved himself a successful, if rather reviled, leader of men and went on to conquer half of the world.

An arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was requested by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, demanding that the Sudanese president be made to stand trial for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Sudans Darfur region.

U.S. President George W. Bush may attempt to sound visionary, talk tough, and criticize opponents as naive, but the Middle East which he visited last week is in shambles, due in no small part to policies he has pursued or failed to pursue during his two terms in office.