MER - Washington - 23 February, 1998:

    The American-controlled Arab "client-regimes" have been busy repressing and controlling their peoples.  Even so some demonstrations have taken place; and some have managed to be seen and heard through the fog of oppression and the drone of government-controlled propaganda.
 
    In doubly-occupied Palestine the Arafat "authority" has even closed down independent radio and TV stations which not too long ago American government agencies were paying to set up!  After Madeleine Albright's severe lecturing of Arafat to end all Palestinian support for Saddam, the screws of repression
have been substantially tightened by this latest "client-regime" in the region.

   One day, eventually, a backlash against American and Israeli domination of the Arab Middle East will erupt.  But with Arab institutions so weak and divided; and with ever-growing amounts of money, arms, and the tools of repression still being provided by the Americans to their Arab "client regimes" in Riyadh, Amman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, and other Arab lands; that day is not yet at hand.
    Overall the American press is notoriously inadequate and deceitful when dealing with the Arab world.  Even so, occasionally interesting information seeps through.  This insightful article is from the Boston Globe last week on 2/18.
 

                  By Charles M. Sennott
 
AMMAN, Jordan, 2/18/98 - Voices in the streets of the Arab world, from Cairo's teeming slums to the Arabian Peninsula's shiny capitals, have been rising in anger as the American drumbeat of war against Iraq grows louder.

    In this capital, street demonstrations supporting Saddam Hussein were crushed last Friday by riot police with attack dogs and tear gas.  In Cairo, thousands of people rallied waving Iraqi flags. Throughout the West Bank, Palestinians have marched with mock Scud missiles and clashed with Israeli troops. In Yemen over the weekend, hundreds jumped from their cars and buses in a spontaneous and virulently
anti-American protest.

    Leaders in Jordan and in the Gulf states, even those who detest Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, seem to recognize the broad, popular appeal of Hussein's stand against perceived Western aggression and of his
theatrical accusations that Washington's Middle East policy is led by Israeli interests.

    This public outcry has effectively shattered the Persian Gulf War coalition that seven years ago supported the US-led coalition that drove Hussein out of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

    The view that the United States is arrogant and blindly loyal to Israeli interests is certainly nothing new in the Arab world.  But it seems to be reconfirmed in the current crisis in a way that, experts and diplomats agree, poses a grave threat to the diplomatic gains the United States made in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War and to the future of the stalled peace process.

    ''People are very angry,'' said Kamal Abu Ghan, 36, a Palestinian whose family fled from the West Bank to Jordan like hundreds of thousands of others after the 1967 Six-Day War. ''America says it wants to be a friend.  But, you know, Iraq is family.''

    Standing behind a barricade after riot police crushed a demonstration in Amman, Abu Ghan added, '' We are angry. ... It is wrong for the US to punish the Iraqi people. How long can they be humiliated?''

    On the same street, Raza Mousra, 39, an Egyptian money changer, was too busy working to take part in the demonstration. But he said that even though many people see Hussein as a dictator, there is deep
loyalty to the Iraqi people in the current crisis in a way that there was not during the 1991 Gulf War.

    ''The Gulf War was a different case,'' he explained. ''Hussein invaded a country. He had to be pushed back, and people felt that it was tragic but necessary that Iraq be punished. But now what has he done? He has lived up to the weapons inspections for six years, but they just don't stop. Why should poor people and women and children be punished for that? It's wrong.''

    Professor Abdella Shayji, a political science professor at Kuwait University, added, ''There is not great love for Saddam Hussein, certainly not here.  But Saddam has come to represent the voice of the
voiceless in the Arab world.  Suddenly, he has become their voice, their leader, their Scud against the frustration and futility they feel with the collapse of the peace process and the fact that nothing has really changed in the New World Order.''

    Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright insisted on her tour of the region that there is ''no linkage'' between the current crisis and the peace plan and that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threaten
the whole region.

    Western diplomats in the region point out that there were also dire predictions about what would happen after the Persian Gulf War. None of those predictions came true, they said. In fact, the United States was able to make historic strides in achieving peace in the region.  They also insist that while leaders in the region may not wish to challenge openly the public opposition, they privately support the
US initiative to use force if necessary to make Hussein comply with the weapons inspections agreed upon by Iraq after the Gulf War.

    Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview widely published in the Arab press yesterday, ''The issue is not what the Arab leaders think, but what the public opinion in the Arab world states. The
problem with the West is that they don't understand what makes the Arab people tick. They don't understand the significance of the fact that not a single Arab leader is supportive of the bombing.''

    The opposition to the possible use of force by the United States is expressed in newspaper columns in nearly every Arab capital.  Again and again, allegations of a glaring double standard in US foreign policy are made. Iraq, they argue, is threatened with military action to enforce UN resolutions, while Israel is permitted to flout UN resolutions, such as Resolution 242, which calls upon Israel to withdraw from territory occupied in the 1967 war.

    The widely read Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram said in its lead editorial, ''Each time the United States toughens its line on Iraq and overlooks the nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal of Israel, which occupies Arab lands, it exposes its double standards. America will lose whatever remains of its credibility in the region if it launches aggression against Iraq.''

    The pan-Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, in a lead editorial on Feb. 12, said that strong public opinion, even if it is eventually overlooked by regional leaders, can still have impact: ''Arab public opinion can, if it stirs with the necessary momentum, prevent the American strike, for the US administration takes public opinion into account 1,000 times, unlike the Arab regimes which ignore it and do their best to
curb it by all means.''

    Such blurring of the lines between support for the Iraqi people and support for Hussein can be heard on street corners as well as the homes of the ruling elite.

    The visible US buildup in the region, US and British officials say, serves to focus Hussein's attention on the issue and push him to relent on the UN resolutions.

    But the image of American aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf leads the Arab world to see Hussein as the underdog.

    A former senior Jordanian government official, speaking on background, echoed a common sentiment heard in the region by comparing the current crisis to the 1956 attack on Egypt by the British, French, and Israelis to topple its leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Despite the defeat, Nasser's popularity surged in the Arab world and the aggression only helped to further his dream of pan-Arabism.

    ''It is not to suggest that Saddam is anywhere near the leader that Nasser was. But the path of history, I believe, could end up being the same,'' the official said. ''Saddam will only be strengthened in the Arab world if the US goes forward with this attack.''