Opinion in Iraq and the Arab world

William Shawcross in yesterday's Sun:

[B]ehind the headlines Iraq is not all disaster. When I was there last month every Iraqi I met said they were glad that the US, Britain and their allies had overthrown Saddam. They do not want to be occupied indefinitely and they worry about security. But following our sacrifices they now feel they have a future. Under the tyranny of Saddam they did not. (Hat tip: Anthony Cox.)

Maybe Shawcross was only told what he wanted to hear. But then there's also this from Omar at Iraq the Model:

I've been visiting the BBC Arabic site in the last few days and I found a forum where people from many Arab countries – including Iraq - post their opinions about some hot topics, the main of those is Iraq and terrorism of course. I wasn't surprised to see that most Arabs (especially from Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria) are forming one side of the debates while Iraqis and people from the rest of the gulf countries are taking the other side. But I was surprised when I found that... almost all the Iraqis who took part in the debates are on our side, maybe 95% of Iraqis expressed their rejection to the violent behavior of some Iraqis and condemned the terrorists attacks on both Iraqis and the coalition saying that the Arab world must stop supporting the terrorists and the thugs from inside Iraq. It's also surprising that many of those Iraqis live in areas that are recognized to have a public anti American attitude in general like A'adhamiya, Diyala and Najaf. I feel that those people are still afraid to voice their points of view in public in such hostile atmospheres but the internet is providing them freedom and safety to say whatever they believe in.

[Omar goes on to translate three of the posts by Iraqis at the BBC Arabic site, of which the following is one.]

"The martial show for the Mahdi army that Muqtada made is tearing apart the national unity and therefore Iraq needs the liberating forces to remain to prevent the country which was the origin of civilization from being ruled by fanatics...". Saad Yaseen-Diyala. (Via Roger Simon.)

There's a new Egyptian blog, Hello from the land of the Pharaohs. From two early posts:

I can't get Iraq out of my mind. It is the most important development project in the modern history of the Middle East. Iraq is everything now. The success of reform in the region depends solely on how successful Iraq turns out to be.

I hate to start my blog with a negative note but I cannot avoid commenting on the latest brutal killing of one of the Italian hostages. I was not surprised. They did it to Richard Pearl in Pakistan and they are doing it again in Iraq. The forces of evil will not relent until they turn Iraq into hell. Those people are fighting for nothing except their own sadistic ideologies...

Getting rid of them will be very difficult especially since those areas [were] left to accumulate thugs from outside and inside Iraq... Those people did not accept what the majority of Iraqis accepted which is a diplomatic way to end the occupation until elections in January 2005. To be more frank, they will not accept anything... This is the reason why crushing them is an integral part in Iraq's road to recovery...

...I believe with all my heart that the vast majority of "Sunni triangle" residents want a peaceful life in a new Iraq. And my heart is squashed every time one of those innocent people [loses] his/her life.

And:

Many asked me about how Egyptians feel towards the war in Iraq. I have been trying to avoid this issue because it upsets me so much. I'm afraid almost no one shares my views in Egypt. Brainwashed by a completely unbalanced media, the majority of Egyptians do not give a hoot about the future of Iraq as long as they see the US in trouble. Nobody stops to think about how Iraq can evolve into a decent nation, they are busy praying for more chaos to prove that the US was wrong... I also want to point to the fact that this sickness is not just in Egypt but in all other Arab countries (not mentioning Western Europe!) apart from Kuwait and Iraq. I always say that Kuwait and Iraq are on the side of Iraq! Also, I have to mention that there are several Arab intellectuals who support the reconstruction efforts in Iraq and who pray for the success of the coalition and its Iraqi partners. (Via Tim Blair; hat tip: SM.)