Iraqi Collapse Is a Dagger in the Arab Heart

In editorial comments and casual conversations, Arabs struggled Thursday to comprehend the stunning events in Iraq: How could Saddam Hussein’s regime crumble so quickly? Why didn’t his army stand and fight? What do the Americans plan next, now that for the first time they are occupying an Arab capital?

They debated in Cairo’s coffee shops and the shopping malls of Saudi Arabia but found no easy answers. The images of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad appeared to change no minds about the perceived unjustness of the war. Few said Baghdad’s fall offered new opportunities for a wider regional peace. Most see the United States as an imperialistic presence. And at the end of the day, Arabs felt disheartened, powerless, fearful.

“The pride the Arabs felt in the initial stages of the invasion, before those legendary ‘pockets of resistance’ halting the advance of the world’s only superpower were revealed as a myth, has been replaced by immense shame and humiliation,” Managing Editor John R. Bradley wrote in Saudi Arabia’s Arab News.

“The images of U.S. soldiers taking a picnic in the heart of Baghdad will haunt the Arab psyche for a long time. The junta in the U.S. were right: Don’t listen to all the talk about resistance and anger. The Iraqi army is a joke. America now rules the world, either directly or by proxy, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

A Saudi lawyer, Mohammed Said Tayeb, offered an equally uneasy assessment. “People opened their eyes Wednesday morning and saw something unbelievable,” he said. “The falling of Baghdad. It means the downfall of the whole country. Finished. This isn’t Somalia. It’s Iraq, one of the oldest states in the Middle East, one of the founders of the United Nations.”

Official response throughout the Arab world was muted, generally limited to statements about the need to restore law and order and form a government of Iraqis.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal expressed concerns about “a humanitarian catastrophe and the violation of homes and lives.” Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, said the region had entered a period of tension and instability.

“It is absolutely imperative that the Iraqis take charge of running their country as soon as possible,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said. “I have great faith that an Iraq governed by Iraqis at the earliest day is the swiftest way to achieve and consolidate stability.”

Many newspapers spread the picture of Hussein’s statue being pulled down in the center of Baghdad over several columns on their front pages.

London-based Asharq al-Awsat, one of the few Arabic papers to largely support the war, summed up the news under the headline “Shock in the Arab Capitals, Rejoicing in Baghdad,” and printed pictures of Iraqis attacking symbols of the regime.

Egypt’s Al Wafd, which has taken a vitriolic position against the war, used a political cartoon depicting President Bush with devil’s horns on his head and Nazi swastikas on his tie.

In Jordan, Amman’s state-censored dailies placed quotes around the word liberation to describe what had happened in Baghdad. “Americans should not confuse happiness at the tyrant’s fall with a willingness to accept occupation,” said the Daily Star in a front-page editorial.

Many papers in Jordan printed a picture of a U.S. Marine draping an American flag over a statue of Hussein, without mentioning in the caption that it was quickly replaced with an Iraqi flag, apparently on the orders of a superior.

“I was so angry I could not even talk,” said Labib Kamhawi, a political analyst. “This is something that should not happen. It is something you cannot believe.”

Kamhawi compared the fall of Baghdad to the establishment of Israel in 1948, arguing that both events mark profound shifts in the region’s power structure. “It’s like a tremor,” he said. “It creates a lot of vibrations that won’t be felt right away, but later, well, we’ll see. For now the people are subdued, shocked.”

In many capitals, Arabs expressed anger at Hussein for not fighting to defend his capital.

“All that talk, and it turns out he’s a liar and coward,” said Fuoud Salah, a Cairo lawyer. “He shouldn’t have given up so easily.”

The irony in those sentiments is that if Hussein had made a stand in Baghdad, it would have led to more Iraqi civilian casualties -- the very thing that has sparked such outrage at the United States in the Arab world.

“For the second time in 12 years, Saddam Hussein has cheated the entire Arab world and let down his people,” Egypt’s Al-Gomhorriya daily editorialized Thursday.

“After claiming for months that he’s waiting for the American and British troops and that Baghdad was the decisive battle, the capital fell yesterday so swiftly. American tanks wandered around the streets without facing resistance.”

To explain the Iraqi regime’s unexpectedly sudden disintegration, many Arabs had an easy answer: There was a conspiracy -- as there is in the Arab world to explain virtually every happening involving non-Muslims. In this case, Hussein was in cahoots with the United States all along, as Washington wanted someone to keep the region unstable. Now, having secured bases in the Persian Gulf states, Washington no longer finds Hussein useful and has cut a deal with him to disappear.

It is a theory given wide credence by even middle-class Arabs.

“There’s something very suspicious about what happened in Baghdad,” said Janice Chill, a Cairo travel agent. “Maybe Saddam has just gone underground and is preparing for the real war. I don’t believe we’ve seen the end. Even the pictures of Iraqis celebrating weren’t quite convincing.”

*

Times staff writer Megan K. Stack in Cairo contributed to this report.