World opinion divided between jubilation and dismay

FRANCE AND OLD EUROPE

By John Lichfield and Fred Weir in Moscow

France welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein yesterday but called for UN involvement in the rapid restoration of Iraq's economy and "full sovereignty".

Although France led the successful opposition to UN approval for the Iraqi war, Jacques Chirac, the President, made clear yesterday that he was not weeping for the Iraqi regime.

"France, like every democracy, welcomes the fall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and hopes there will be a rapid and effective end to the fighting," said a statement from the Elysée Palace.

The reference to "full sovereignty" reflected French fears, shared in the Arab world, that the US will seek to preserve a long political and economic influence over whatever Iraqi government follows President Saddam.

Paris also went out of its way to distance itself from what it sees as a simplistic US vision of regime change in Iraq as the precursor of a democratic Middle East. Paris (with London) believes that Washington should now put its energy into reviving the Middle East peace process by pressurising Israel to make concessions towards a Palestinian state.

Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, said: "A dark page in history has been turned with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime and we are delighted. We must ensure that the hope that is today cherished by the Iraqi people becomes the hope of the entire region, and that is why we put the accent on ... advancing towards a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Similar comments, welcoming the demise of the dictatorship, were made by Russia and Germany, the other main European opponents of the war. M. Chirac will fly to St Petersburg today to join a long-scheduled meeting between Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder.

In Moscow, disapproval of the decision to invade Iraq has been compounded by consternation at the rapid collapse of Iraq's army, which was largelyarmed with Soviet and Russian equipment.

Vitaly Shlyikov, who was deputy defence minister in the early 1990s, said: "This is a sharp lesson for Russia's military establishment. The Iraqi army was a replica of the Russian army, and its easy defeat was not predicted by our generals. Today, they are in denial, not ready to accept reality. But this will strengthen the case of reformers, who say we must dismantle our Soviet-built military machine and start thinking about modern armed forces for Russia."

THE ARAB WORLD

By Sa'id Ghazali in Ramallah

The defeat in Baghdad is going to leave a scar across the Arab world. For Palestinians in Ramallah the reverberations of this defeat were louder than the music the young men were playing in the main square – songs about the battle in Jenin a year ago, when Israeli soldiers destroyed much of the refugee camp.

The image of Iraqis, assisted by an American tank, destroying the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Paradise Square shocked the 290 million Arabs from the Persian Gulf to Casablanca.

"These people are releasing their hate and anger against the regime, soon the Iraqis will fight the Americans if they do not leave the land of Iraq," said Yazeed Sawafta, a Palestinian lawyer.

"This is an earthquake," Qassem Jaafer, an Arab analyst, told al-Jazeera television. "The regime has been quickly collapsed. We should be realistic. We did not need the American tanks to make this change in Baghdad." People were grasping for the meaning of this defeat for Arab regimes from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

"The defeat of Saddam is the defeat of the Arab regime in all Arab countries, and not a defeat for the Arab nation. All Arab leaders are liars, collaborators and thieves,'' said Hosni al-Zein, a Palestinian sweet shop owner. "I do not believe in al-Zaim." Al-Zaim, an Arabic word for an absolute monarch, was on many lips.

"The homeland is not al-Zaim," said Mr Jaafer on al-Jazeera. "The homeland is the interests of the nation, and its elected government."

The resistance will start soon, said several Arab commentators. "Before, the people of Iraq were shouting, 'We sacrifice our soul and blood for Saddam'. Tomorrow, they will shout, 'We sacrifice our soul and blood for Iraq'," said Maher Abdullah, another al-Jazeera commentator.

"This is a defeat for all the Arabs," said Hudna Ghanem in Ramallah. "I don't know why Saddam didn't fight?"

The answer came in al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper published in London: "Saddam Hussein is not a martyr, and not a national hero, because he likes himself more than Iraq, and he did not fight for Baghdad."

Abd al-Rahim al-Baghdadi, a Palestinian in Jerusalem, said: "We are not crying for the collapse of the regime, we are crying because the American tanks have occupied Baghdad."

In the Cairo-based daily al-Jumhuriya, Salameh Ahmed Salameh wrote: "The humiliation will reach its peak when the new American governor and his aides, British colonialists, will control the resources of Iraq. The wound is so deep ... its grave consequences will last for a generation to come."

ASIA AND AUSTRALIA

By Jan McGirk in Islamabad

Newspaper headlines and public opinion across the Muslim countries of Asia reflected deep mistrust of the US yesterday and focused on the casualties from the "colonial" war.

In Pakistan, The Nation announced: "US tanks in heart of Baghdad ... Unbearable picture of killing, destruction." In its editorial, the paper said: "The whole thing boils down to a subordinate status for Iraqis and anything but a vital role for the UN."

Writing in the Daily Times, which said "Saddam wins hearts and minds in Pakistan", the commentator Izaz Shafi Gilani described the mood among Pakistanis as being one of "pain and anger."

Opposition to the war in Iraq had run high in Pakistan, with 85 per cent of those surveyed in a recent poll saying they wanted President Saddam to remain in power. Eighty nine per cent were in favour of a boycott of American goods.

Pictures of jubilant Iraqis dancing on top of fallen statues of President Saddam dominated the front pages in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country where there have been huge anti-war demonstrations.

Republika, a Muslim newspaper, ran a headline saying: "Colonising soldiers hold Baghdad" under a picture of a US soldier draping the Stars and Stripes over the head of a statue of Saddam.

In Malaysia, Annuar Musa, a senior member of the ruling party led by Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister, said the Iraqi President's downfall showed Washington ruled the world and that the UN was less relevant. "This sends a very bad signal to Muslim countries, that those who are against the Israelis could face economic or military pressure from the US," he said. "We won't see Muslims in Malaysia jumping for joy."

In Australia The Sydney Morning Herald noted that while public opinion was deeply divided before the start of the war, "there is not the same dissension over Australia's role in the new Iraq".

AMERICA

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

The reaction in America was marked by triumphalism, with TV stations and newspaper front pages exulting in the iconic image of Saddam Hussein's statue being toppled in Fardous Square and reflecting the Bush administration's high hopes for political transformation across the Middle East.

"I am very proud today to be an American. I thank God for President Bush's tremendous political courage," read a letter from Ron Walker of Orange County, California, in The New York Times. "The lesson for future Americans may well be how horribly wrong ultra-liberals in America revealed themselves to be." While there were plenty of caveats about the achievement, no one cast too dark a pall over the event Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had likened to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Los Angeles Times carried the headline: "New day in ancient land." The Washington Post referred to the "glorious images" coming from Baghdad. The New York Times said there was "unity among good-hearted people everywhere, a hope that what comes next for the Iraqi people will be a better, freer and saner life".

The right-wing Washington Times berated some television stations for questioning the draping of a US flag over Saddam Hussein's statue. "The press did not question the raising of the American flag over Iwo Jima back in 1945."

Not everyone was gung-ho, even in George Bush's home state of Texas. "If the US is not careful in its words and deeds, if the UN is not sufficiently involved, many in the Middle East are more than willing to interpret Iraq's liberation as a new form of colonialism," the Houston Chronicle wrote.

And Roberta Palmer of Oregon wrote to The New York Times saying: "Reports of our troops walking through the rubble of a presidential palace, sitting in Saddam Hussein's chair and pulling down statues make us look less like an army of liberation and more like the Visigoths sacking Rome."