US standing with Arabs hits a low

The US enjoyed greater assistance from Arab governments during the first Gulf War partly because Mr. Hussein was seen as the aggressor, but also because the US standing in the region was better.

Sipping tea in an expensive cafe in central Cairo, Ibrahim would seem a model target for US plans to foster democratic transformation in the region. While it was predictable that religious leaders like Syria's Grand Mufti or thousands of protesters in largely Shiite Bahrain have denounced the recent US offensive in the shrine city of Najaf, losing the respect of men like Ibrahim could be more damaging to US interests in the long run.

A member of Egypt's tiny middle class, he isn't subject to the abuses and frustrations that leave millions of poor Arabs susceptible to the lure of extreme religious ideologies. But while he says he wants his own government to change, he's suspicious of American claims that it is seeking the same things for Egypt.

In Iraq, he sees the US effort as centered around securing oil and asserting military dominance. In his own country, he sees the Mubarak regime propped up by massive US aid. Since 1979, Egypt has received about $2.1 billion a year in US military and general economic aide.

In that period, the number of opposition members of parliament has shrunk, and the economy has stagnated. Human rights groups complain the government uses arrests and torture to silence its opponents. "America's money isn't changing Egypt - it's keeping it just the way it is,'' says Ibrahim. "That's not an accident."

Mr. Mack, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, says the Bush Administration's early decision to disengage from mediation between Palestinians and Israelis, cost the US substantial leverage in the region.

"This does not mean that the US must be loved or 'even handed' between Israel and the Arabs. It does mean that the US must at least have the reputation for trying to solve long-standing problems without doing so simply for narrow motive,'' says Mack. "In the past, the US often got credit for trying."

America's slipping standing is due to a number of factors, say analysts, from serving as a safe target for Arab frustrations at their own governments to the increasing violence in Israel, which is ahead of Egypt as the largest recipient of US government aid. But the Zogby poll indicates that anger at recent US policies accounts for the bulk of the decline. In part, that's due to the recent growth of Arab satellite news channels, which beam regional footage of Israeli and US operations to tens of millions of homes.

While most Arabs speak favorably on such topics as America's democratic and educational systems, they're virtually united in condemnation of the US invasion of Iraq. The Zogby poll found no more than 4 percent support for the war.

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