BEIRUT -- Ever since the Anglo-American armies went to war against Iraq, the Arabs have been wondering whether the conquest of one of their major states will lead to success or the most catastrophic of failures. Can the Americans really make Iraq into a platform for a strategic, economic and cultural "reshaping" of the entire Arab world (plus Iran), or will this extraordinary, neoconservative ambition provoke what some already see as a second Arab struggle for independence?
The achievements of the first struggle, conducted principally against Britain and France in the colonial era, have been lost -- totally and physically in Iraq's case, politically elsewhere. It is not surprising, therefore, that signs that the U.S. administration in Iraq is running into armed resistance has resonated around the region.
With their utterly chaotic and ineffectual response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Arabs reached what they regard as the lowest point yet in a process of political and institutional decomposition and decay. Yet the invasion also illustrated just how strong the Arabs' sense of common destiny and identity remains psychologically. So American actions and Arab reactions to it ensure that whatever now happens in Iraq will, for better or worse, have regionwide repercussions.