Arab world dismayed at 'new colonialism'

The West may have watched the pictures of jubilant crowds in Baghdad with joy, but in the Arab world most people watched with dismay. Many turned their televisions off, unable to watch any more.

Many Arabs who opposed Saddam Hussein's regime saw in the television pictures not the toppling of a ruthless tyrant, but the conquest of Iraq by a foreign occupying army. The most telling moment came when American soldiers briefly draped a statue of President Saddam with a US flag. "This is a new colonialism," was one Palestinian's reaction.

It was a dichotomy that troubled Arabs across the Middle East. "The lesson should be clear for Arab regimes in other countries," one Palestinian journalist said. "There is a big distinction between the people and the regimes who control them with tyranny. The Iraqis understand that the Americans did not come as liberators but to take control of their oil."

The US is also mistrusted because it is seen as pro-Israeli in its attempts to mediate in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Few have any faith in George Bush's promise to pursue the "road-map" peace plan that calls for a Palestinian state.

Just about the only people celebrating in the Arab world outside Iraq were Iraqi exiles. Some were sitting watching the scenes from Baghdad in coffee houses in Amman, Jordan, with tears in their eyes.

But among other Arabs there was little joy. In Cairo, where people crowded round windows of electrical stores to watch scenes from Baghdad on televisions, some dismissed the Iraqis celebrating in the streets as "illiterates". "It is only the thieves and the looters who are celebrating," an Egyptian lawyer told the BBC.