The Arab world is squarely in John Kerry’s corner: Look who wants Bush to lose. (Hat tip: Ethel Carol.)

Take, for example, a recent article in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly (August 12-18 issue) by Cairo University’s Prof. Hassan Nafaa. Bush, he wrote, is a “wild eyed zealot” and an “evil fanatic” whose “departure from the Oval Office will mark the beginning of the decline of the forces of extremism and the rise of the forces of moderation.”

A Kerry victory, Prof. Nafaa says, barely containing his glee, would mean that “US foreign policy will undergo a major shift that will ultimately impact positively on Washington’s approach to the affairs of the Middle East.”

In other words, a Kerry administration would be far more compliant as far as the Arabs are concerned.

An August 4 editorial in the Syria Times expressed a similar sentiment, urging Arab-Americans not to make “the very mistake they made in the past when they gave their votes to Bush the Junior” in the 2000 presidential election. Instead, suggested the government-run paper, a vote for Kerry this time would prove to be “a wise one.”

Judging by their leadership, the Palestinians seem to feel the same way, with Yasser Arafat said to be among those who is rooting for a Democratic victory.

“Arafat is waiting for November in the hope that George Bush will lose the election to John Kerry,” Israel’s military intelligence chief Maj.Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash told a cabinet meeting just over a month ago.

Following Arafat’s lead, the official Palestinian media has made no effort to hide where its sympathies lie. On July 27, the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, for example, ran a political cartoon depicting an American soldier bleeding to death in Iraq, his final words being, “Don’t Vote Bush.”

And then, of course, there is Iran. The mullahs, whom Bush famously labeled part of the “Axis of Evil” in his January 2002 State of the Union Address, are also panting at the prospect of a Republican defeat.

Just last week, on a visit to New Zealand, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said that the US government was “looking for excuses” to act against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

A June 17 article in the English-language Tehran Times entitled “Pity the Next US President” was even more critical, comparing Bush and his neo-conservative advisers to “neo-Nazis” who have created a “stinking heap of a mess” throughout the world. “Kerry,” the paper asserts, “is exactly what the US needs right now.”