NEWS ANALYSIS : Allied Gains Don’t Sway Arab Hearts : Geopolitics: Most people in the region remain firmly anti-American despite their governments’ stands.

Any American expectation that a victory over Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will lead to friendly acceptance by the Arab-Muslim world of a new order under the influence of the West and its regional allies is being rejected by many Middle East analysts.

The initial dominance of the U.S.-led coalition after the first week of the Gulf War has failed to weaken the anti-American attitudes of the vast majority of people in the Arab world. Protests and demonstrations have broken out even among those Middle East nations most opposed to Iraq.

Even an overwhelming victory will leave the United States and its allies seriously damaged politically, according to experts.

“In the Arab world, I anticipate very violent reactions to the armed conflict because people are sensitive against foreign military presence on Arab soil,” said a Jordanian official.

“They are very sensitive to the recurrence of neocolonialism. . . ,” he said. “They are very sensitive against the killing of Muslims and Arabs by foreigners.”

It is clear that popular sentiment through most of the region and in Muslim countries worldwide already is strongly pro-Iraq. There have been anti-American protests and demonstrations from Jordan to Tunisia to Algeria.

American businesses have been bombed or threatened in Ankara, Turkey, and cars of Western diplomats were stoned in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh. Western journalists have been attacked in the streets of Amman, Jordan.

In a telephone interview, a Western diplomat in a Middle East country said that a short war might temporarily strengthen the United States and its allies among the wealthy, despotic Arab states.

“But even that won’t hold,” the diplomat said. “The people (in the region) don’t love their rulers; they don’t love the West. They may accept reality at the outset, but the United States is an outsider and won’t be welcomed here.”

Worse from the American view, he added, “will be any protracted war, particularly one that spills out of Kuwait or kills a lot of Iraqis or involves Israel. If the people sense a Western failure to defeat Hussein, then you could see the bloody uprisings you are asking about. . . .

“At the least, you will see the Americans viewed as the defilers of the region. If the radicals prevail, positive American influence will be nil.”

In the mind of Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein and a key policy-maker in his country, much of the ill will predates the war and results from America’s failure to treat the nations of the region equally.

“The sadness,” the prince said in an interview Wednesday in Amman, “is that in the post-’73 period . . . you could talk to Americans across the board, across the political spectrum” and disagree, yet “you could walk away from a meeting without the stigma of being anti-American.”

Alluding to the American criticism of Jordan’s rejection of the U.S.-led, anti-Iraq military coalition, the prince said, “I think the damaging of the relationship is because we have since the 2nd of August been conspicuously talking past each other. . . .”

In fact, he said, since the United States challenged Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait, “it’s been all stick for Jordan and no carrot. And the more we get hit over the head, the more it affects us. . . . It’s cause and effect.

But emotions stronger than sadness are driving anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world. Even those Arab nations who belong to or support the anti-Iraq coalition are feeling popular pressure. Syrian and Egyptian intellectuals and professionals have denounced their governments’ support of the West.

This opposition has led to crackdowns by some governments and the imposition of strong censorship about war developments. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has not permitted any publication or broadcast of the Iraqi missile attacks on Israel for fear of setting off street demonstrations.

Morocco, the only North African Arab nation to send troops to support the coalition, has banned protests. Egypt and Syria have sent up trial peace balloons in an effort to offset demands that they withdraw from the multinational force.

Behind these actions, of course, is the government officials’ concern for their political survival after the war.

“The future economic development of the region is going to be further constrained,” said a Jordanian official. “The gap between this area and Europe is going to be widened, as well as between the haves and have-nots in the Arab world. So, war will have a very negative long-term social-political impact on the whole Muslim and Arab society.”

Freed reported from Nicosia and Fineman from Amman, Jordan.