Iranian Amir Taheri looks to be another commentator worth reading on the Middle East. Here’s from his London Times article titled “Don’t listen to the Arab elites, the Iraqis didn’t and they’re the ones cheering today”:
The Arab masses… as yesterday’s scenes of jubilation showed in Baghdad, are happy to see at least one of their oppressors kicked into the dustbin of history. The so-called “Arab street” did not explode in countries outside Iraq, thus disappointing the “Don’t-Touch-Saddam” lobby in the West…Much of the Arab media went hysterical about imaginary battles in which resisting Iraqis supposedly inflicted massive losses on “the invaders”. They forecast a war that would last “for years”, if not “until the end of time”…These days the Arab media are full of articles about how the Arabs feel humiliated by what has happened in Iraq, how they are frustrated, how they hate America for having liberated the people of Iraq from their oppressor, and how they hope that the Europeans, presumably led by Jacques Chirac, will ride to the rescue to preserve a little bit of Saddam’s legacy with the help of the United Nations. Thank God, the peoples of Iraq, not deceived by Arab hyperbole, are ignoring such nonsense. [Times (London), 4/10/03]Hear! Hear!