Syria on Thursday hailed US President George W. Bush's Republican Party's loss of both houses of Congress as a rebuke by the voters for his administration's policies on Iraq.
"The election results are a real slap in the face from the American people for the administration which launched the war in Iraq," Information Minister Mohsin Bilal told the official SANA news agency.
"The election results are a major shift because the American people voted for change, against the war and against the neo-conservative policies of the current administration," Bilal said.
The minister hailed the fact that an opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Nancy Pelosi, was poised to assume the United States' third highest office, the speaker-ship of the House of Representatives.
Pelosi voted against the 2002 resolution authorising the use of force in Iraq and is on record as saying she wants to see a phased withdrawal of troops by the end of next year.
Syria has been the target of frequent criticism from the Bush administration for not doing more to stop the flow of arms and volunteers to Sunni Arab insurgents fighting the US-backed government in Iraq.
Both Syria and its regional ally Iran have also been frozen out of US-led diplomacy in the region in a policy on which Bush adviser James Baker is now reported to be canvassing a rethink.