Cairo:America's opponents in the Middle East are gloating at the financial meltdown in the United States, describing it as the divinely inspired collapse of an overstretched empire. Hardline clerics across the region as well as representatives of US opponents like Hamas and al-Qaeda have described the plummeting stocks and frozen credit markets in the US as a kind of retribution for American misdeeds. "We are witnessing the collapse of the American Empire," Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in the Gaza Strip, told worshippers during Friday prayers.

"What s going on in America is a result of the violation of the rights of people in Palestine, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Muslims around the world." Haniyeh s comments followed those made by other regional leaders who have long had an antagonistic relationship with the US. However, the financial meltdown has not left the region unscathed, with stock markets across the Middle East dropping more than 10 per cent in the past week.

In an interview on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described America s problems as a matter of chickens coming home to roost after years of exporting inflation and deficits to the rest of the world. "Now the world capacity is full and these problems have returned to the US," he said. "And finally they are oppressors, and systems based on oppression and unrighteous positions will not endure." Al-Qaeda, America s arch-nemesis in the region,was one of the first to express satisfaction over the economic crisis. "The enemies of Islam are facing a crushing defeat, which is beginning to manifest itself in the expanding crisis their economy is experiencing," said American al-Qaeda member Ahmed Gadahn.

Source : PTI