Europe Reaches Out To Bush

France, Germany and the other European countries President Bush alienated during his first four years promised Wednesday to work with the new U.S. administration.

But on the streets of Europe, many people expressed disappointment and anxiety about where U.S. foreign policy would take the world, reports CBS News Correspondent Sheila MacVicar on The Early Show.

In Europe, governments said that the election was a chance to repair ties strained by Mr. Bush's decision to go to war despite opposition from European powers such as France and Germany.

"What can we do together to get out of the black hole of Middle East crises?" asked French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier Barnier on national television. He added: "We have lots to do on current crises: Iraq, the Middle East, Iran, the challenges of the African continent, to rebuild, to renovate trans-Atlantic relations."

"I hope that a re-elected President Bush would use the chance offered by his re-election for a new beginning in European-American and German-American relations," German Foreign Ministry official Karsten Voigt told ARD television.

Before John Kerry conceded, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told lawmakers in the House of Commons that he's sure everyone will join him in "sending congratulations to President" - he paused - "Karzai of Afghanistan."

The line got whoops of approval, but not everyone is laughing.

Observers credited Mr. Bush's success to Americans' fears of more terrorist attacks and signs the economy may be improving, but noted it was a very close race.

"It is an incumbent president in a situation where a great part of the nation experiences that it is in a war with terrorism and the economy is moving in the right direction," said Sweden's Prime Minister Goeran Persson. "These two issues together should have given Bush a clear victory. Despite this, it was very narrow. This shows that the U.S. is divided."

Observers were quick to offer a wish list to the new president.

Under the headline "Good Morning, Mr. President," Germany's mass-circulation Bild daily covered its front page with a list of expectations that included "Catch Bin Laden and stop the terror," "Finally ensure peace in Iraq" and "Push down the oil price."

Shares in Asia rallied, through traders said the rises were due more to investors' relief that the drawn-out campaign had come to an end than the news of a possible winner. Oil prices reversed a weeklong decline to surge above $51 a barrel.

Analysts said that security issues were one of the keys to the election, the first since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

"Despite a bad economy and the loss of jobs, the Americans are still gripped by the 9/11 scenario that has played in favor of Bush," said Amen Izzadeen, an analyst with the independent Daily Mirror newspaper in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Mr. Bush's response to the attacks — launching a global war on terrorism that led to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and raised tensions between America and Europe as well as the West and Muslims who felt they are being stigmatized — brought U.S. policy to all corners of the globe in a way it hasn't for decades.

"This is a catastrophe for the rest of the world," said Syafii Maarif, chairman of Muhammadiyah, a mainstream Muslim group in Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic country. "We have already seen that Bush has made a mess of the world over the last four years."