BEIRUT -- All Arabs, regimes and citizens agree on one thing: War on Iraq may affect the entire world, but they and their region will pay the highest price by far.
The war itself could be terrible, but they also fear what may follow. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa warns that it will "open the gates of hell," and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said it will light a "gigantic fire" of violence and terror.
An Arab world deeply conscious of its long history of humiliation by foreigners is about to see one of its member-states conquered and occupied. And the Bush administration does not hide its ambition to make this the first step in a "reshaping" of the whole region at least as much in the interest of the Arabs' historic adversary, Israel, as in its own.