CAIRO -- There is no better place to take the pulse of Arab and Muslim sentiment than Cairo, pioneer or hub of the two great movements that have swept the region in recent times: the pan-Arab secular nationalism of which President Gamal Nasser was the champion and the "political Islam" that came into its own with Nasserism's failure and decline.
Today, from air-conditioned think tanks on the banks of the Nile to the sweltering alleyways of the splendid but dilapidated medieval city, there is an overwhelming preoccupation with the two things that seem most fateful for the future: the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and U.S. plans for possible war on Iraq.
"(Osama) bin Laden may have lost a lot of his appeal," said Dia Rashwan, an expert on Islamic fundamentalism, "but that doesn't mean the U.S. isn't hated; it is, more than ever, and more now from an Arab than an Islamic standpoint."