This is an area of the world that the president has engaged very closely with, particularly after the 11 September attacks.
The leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan will be particularly relieved - both are strong allies of the US-led war on terror and have staked their personal careers on it.
A second Bush term is also being seen as a positive development in India which has built a strong relationship with the United States in recent years.
Unlike his predecessors, President Bush is seen to have made South Asia a priority for his administration.
That is partly because of the war on terror but also because of the growing economic relationship between the United States and India
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India has a tremendous role to play in the growing rivalry between the US and Chin
Chintamani Mahapatra Professor of Asian Studies
Your verdicts on Bush’s victory
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“The perception is that a Bush victory is good for India,” says former Indian foreign secretary Shashank.
The Bush administration has invested a great deal of time and effort in improving ties with India - once on the other side of the Cold War fence, now seen increasingly as a growing regional nuclear and economic power.
One of the president’s closest advisors, Robert Blackwill, served as his ambassador to India and had often said both privately and in public that George W Bush had placed India very high on his foreign policy radar.
US diplomats and regional analysts say that Delhi is seen as a important counterweight to China.
“India has a tremendous role to play in the growing rivalry between the US and China,” says Chintamani Mahapatra, Professor of American Studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Many Indian diplomats also say privately that they were worried that a Kerry administration would have put pressure on Delhi to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, something that no Indian government has been prepared to do.
Outsourcing fears ebb
But the win has also come as a big relief to the Indian software industry and other Indian companies who do sub-contracting work or run call-centres for US firms.
Shares on the benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange rose to a six-month high as it became apparent that President Bush was going to remain in the White House.
Musharraf is one of Bush’s closest allies
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“Mr Bush in favour of free trade and there will not be any problem to our business process outsourcing sector, unlike in a win by John Kerry,” says Adi Godrej, one of India’s leading industrialists.
Senator Kerry had accused the Republican administration of outsourcing thousands of US jobs overseas, particularly to India and China.
Boost for allies
The mood across the border in Pakistan however is decidedly mixed.
While the victory has come as a boost for the country’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, it will have disappointed many ordinary Pakistanis as well as the country’s Islamic right.
The US says it is in Afghanistan for the long-term
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General Musharraf is one of the President Bush’s closest allies, earning millions of dollars in aid in exchange for his unstinting support in the war against al-Qaeda and the former Taleban regime in Afghanistan.
“President Musharraf knows the president of the United States and they have some sort of chemistry,” General Talat Mahmood, a Pakistani analyst said.
Another key US ally, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, will also be similarly relieved.
The Bush administration has strongly backed the Afghan president, who has himself just won the country’s first ever presidential elections under the watchful eye of the Americans.
Much of Bush’s Afghan policy is implemented on the ground by the influential US ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad who had been handpicked by the president.
Mr Khalilzad is part of a trio of Afghan Americans who play a key role in Afghanistan - the others being the US-educated Afghan finance minister, Ashraf Ghani and Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali, a former Voice of America broadcaster.
Muslim divide
But the mood on the streets of Pakistan and Afghanistan and indeed among Muslims elsewhere in the region is one of intense disappointment.
Many here fear that a second Bush term will widen the divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.
Most ordinary Pakistanis and Afghans opposed President Bush’s policies in Afghanistan and Iraq and say that they are concerned that he may turn his attention to Iran and Syria.
Opposition politicians in Pakistan are also disappointed with the defeat of John Kerry, who they had hoped may have pressed for greater democracy in their country.
There are also concerns that the US elections signals an ideological shift to the right, strengthening the hands of conservatives.
“The turbulence in this region is not likely to go away,” says regional analyst C Uday Bhaskar.
There are some who believe that the win may invite a backlash from Islamic hardliners in the region.
Although President Bush’s main areas of focus in South Asia have been Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, his administration has displayed more than a passing interest in other parts of the region, particularly Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Both countries are in the midst of low-intensity conflicts - with Maoist rebels in Nepal and Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka although a ceasefire there has held for more than a year.
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