Arab opposition to a US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein is growing so significantly that it may change the shape of potential US plans to launch an attack against Iraq, Western and Middle Eastern analysts say.

The idea is so generally abhorrent to leaders and civilians in the region that the US government will be pressed to sell the operation – which is still on the drawing boards – not as a US-led operation, but as an Iraqi opposition-led assault, the observers say.

Rather than fight the tide of Arab resistance to the idea of an invasion of Iraq, US political and military planners are already trying to work around it, say Western analysts.

"It would be a poor US military planner" who would be unprepared for a lack of support from Iraq's neighbors, says Dr. Gary Sick, the director of Columbia University's Mideast Institute. "That is why the US military will likely have at least five massive aircraft carriers in the region if and when it decides to attack," he says.

Mr. Sick says, however, that negative Arab opinions toward a US effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein are in a state of flux and could still harden or soften depending on how adept the Bush administration is at selling the idea.

Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies in London, says that compensating for a lack of Arab backing would likely involve the use of mobile US Marine units already stationed on US aircraft carriers in the Gulf to help seize the Iraqi port of Basra and use the two airports in that region to launch further attacks from within Iraq.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan, the US military has built up a substantial flotilla – including an armed forces contingent of some 50,000 soldiers in the area of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, the northern Red Sea, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, according to Lt. Commander Matthew Klee with US Central Command in Florida.

Lieutenant Klee says that the US military did not discuss specifics about the number of heavy aircraft carriers, but Western defense analysts say they believe there are already five in the same area.

Military analysts suggest that marketing any attack as an effort by the Iraqi opposition is critical for winning regional support. This weekend, US officials including Vice President Dick Cheney met in Washington with representatives of six Iraqi opposition groups.

But support of Arab states for a new US assault on Iraq is far from assured. By contrast, Middle Eastern allies proved reliable for President George Bush Sr. during the last Gulf War in 1991. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait were all used as a launching pad for the assault which forced the Iraqi army to retreat.

But in today's Arab world, even so-called moderate Arab states are not yet on board for a second war against Iraq. Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar still host US forces and haven't categorically opposed a US attack on Iraq, but other Mideast states have been more outspoken. Indeed, there has been a groundswell of resistance to the idea In Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom's senior envoys have said that they will not allow Washington to use their soil to conduct similar military operations. Egypt and Syria have also expressed opposition to the targeting of Iraq.

Jordan and Yemen, both of whom sided with Iraq at the start of the war in 1991, are equally vociferous this time around in their disdain for the idea.

Page: 1 | 2