Humiliation and Rage Stalk the Arab World

The current Arab attitude toward the American occupation of Iraq is skeptical, at best. Many suspect that America fought the war for oil and "to castrate the one country that remained a potential threat to Israel." In contrast, only a small minority of Arabs believes America will actually create a better Iraq. While few would openly support Saddam Hussein, they see him as a much more temporary threat than the Americans. A professor of social sciences at the Lebanese American University says, "With America you have a whole system, an entirely different system. The threat from America is far greater than the threat from a government that will disappear one day." As long as the American system of democracy is perceived as a threat to the Arab population, the American imposition of its goals and values have little hope of actually penetrating Arab society. –YaleGlobal