28 March

By Daniel Kimmage

Britain's "Al-Hayat": Raghida Dirgham argues that the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein will help make one of the Iraqi leader's dreams come true -- increasing hatred of the United States in the Arab world.

     "Saddam Hussein had lost the battle for public opinion, or the 'Arab street.' He had failed to win trust or sympathy. This was the prevailing sentiment until the beginning of the invasion to occupy Iraq and then 'liberate' it. Once the invasion of Iraq began, Arab public opinion was no longer focused on Saddam Hussein. Instead, the war is making Saddam Hussein's dream come true -- popular anger at the invasion is giving us a glimpse of America's future 'reception' as a power that, together with Britain, occupies Iraq.

     "Saddam Hussein's dream included a revolution of the Arab peoples against their regimes that would make leadership his alone. This will not happen. Saddam Hussein has squandered his claim to leadership, and the Arab peoples will not raise his portrait as their banner even if they should awaken and decide to involve themselves for real in determining their own fate.

     "The part of Saddam Hussein's dream that the American war may make a reality is redoubled hatred, mistrust, and anger toward the United States...."

Kuwait's "Al-Ray Al-Aam": Ali Tini al-Ajami complains that antiwar demonstrations in the Arab world stray into supporting tyranny.

     "Why has no Arab country where there have been demonstrations invited a single Iraqi exile to tell the world of his sufferings through the media?

     "It is unfortunate that Western demonstrations have been more honest and careful than what we have seen in Arab and Islamic countries. This is because those in the West who oppose the war are motivated by the human factor. They have experienced the woes of war. We see among them no upraised portraits of the tyrant. Arab demonstrations that lift up portraits of the tyrant increase the sufferings of the Iraqi people, sufferings that have been either ignored or exploited."

Morocco's "Al-Tajdid": The editors see the war in Iraq as a confrontation between civilization and barbarism. Note that Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led a Mongol force (sometimes called "Tatar" in the Arab historical tradition) that sacked Baghdad in 1258.

     "Marrakech and Fez protested because Baghdad today faces an attack like the Tatar invasion. Just as the historical Tatar invasion of Baghdad had its 'Bush,' so does the American-British invasion today have its new 'Hulagu,' who brings together all the qualities and qualifications of tyranny and arrogance.

     "The people of Fez and Marrakech -- like others in such historic capitals of Islam as A-Qayrawan, Cairo, Damascus, and of course Mecca, the Illuminated City -- have a right to express solidarity with the people of Baghdad. The same is true of the world's other cultural capitals. The American invasion of Iraq is sending humanity back to barbarism and the law of the jungle. Solidarity with Baghdad today aids all the noble values that have come down through the great religions to serve as a foundation for reasonable people. The defense of Baghdad and its mosques is a defense of all the Islamic and international capitals with their mosques, churches, synagogues, prayers, and cultural legacies. The verse from the Koran tells us: 'Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his [cause]; for verily Allah is full of strength, exalted in might....' (22:40)

     "The war against Iraq is not a war of civilizations. It is a war of civilization against barbarism and brutality."