The Arab Street?
The Washington Post had an interesting survey of the reaction of the Arab world on the liberation of Baghdad, as did Reuters. The link to the Arab News is particularly striking.Now it’s obvious that the Iraqis aren’t going to put up a credible fight, and it’s equally clear that as a result the world has changed into pretty much what the Americans wanted it to be. The pride the Arabs felt in the initial stages of the invasion, before those legendary “pockets of resistance” halting the advance of the world’s only superpower were revealed as a myth, has been replaced by immense shame and humiliation.
It's as if it's completely beyond the beyond that maybe the Iraqis just didn't like their government. There's no hint that that even occured to John R. Bradley (nice Arabic name!) as even a remote possibility. Iraqis should oppose the US like good little mindless robots. Just like Mr Bradley should oppose the US because he just knows ahead of time that this is simply a colonial expansion, etc. "C'mon, people -- stick to the script!", you can almost hear him say.