From the BBC:

"But viewers across the Arab world are not watching the news with their usual sad resignation - with events proceeding beyond their control or the control of their political leaders.

"Look, the Iraqis are fighting back," says Khalid proudly, as a news item reports on how four US marines have been killed by a suicide car bombing in southern Iraq.

Khalid, a Palestinian living comfortably in a well-to-do district of the Jordanian capital, sums up the feeling of many Arabs that - in Iraq - the US might finally be paying for years of "double standards" in its Middle East policy.

"The Americans thought they were going to be greeted by celebrations and ululating women as they walked into Basra," Khalid says."

---What else could anyone have expcted? From Pollack on down, the hawks spoke of Iraq as if it were an island in the middle of nowhere; as if the situation in the west bank had nothing to do with any of this. It was always an absurd conceit. Mark Kleiman still misses the point. His response to news of the return of the old schisms in the administration is to treat it if it were a fight over who gets the credit [blame] when the damn thing's over. But it's not just a fight about decisions in the past, it's about decisions in the future. I do not want this country invading Iran.---

"But what they don't realise is that people hate and fear them even more than they may hate or fear Saddam Hussein."