Persian populist wins Arab embrace

"It is a reflection of the unpopularity of the United States," says James Dobbins, an analyst with the RAND Corporation. "Anybody who appears to be standing up to the United States is viewed positively. People are rooting for the underdog."

Analysts note that Ahmadinejad's belligerent tone may cause as much worry as admiration. A recent poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found large majorities in Egypt and Jordan had little or no confidence in him to "do the right thing" in world affairs.

But it was difficult to find such misgivings during a recent afternoon in Cairo, where Ahmadinejad was often described as an honorable man fighting the world's Goliath. By poking his finger in the eye of America and Israel, he has managed to shift the nuclear debate from Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz to the bulldozed olive groves in the Palestinian territories – and to Tel Aviv's own secret nuclear arsenal.

"It is Iran's right to have nuclear energy and nuclear weapons," says Tarek Badri, a Cairo construction foreman. "Why is Israel allowed to have these weapons and Muslim countries are not allowed?"

"Why Israel? That's the question people ask," says Abdo Saad, a Beirut-based pollster. "The Iranian president speaks to that."

The Iranian president has become a spokesman for feelings that many Arab leaders are reluctant to voice. Egyptian officials, for example, publicly say they favor a nuclear-free region, but seldom mention Israel by name. In a 2005 survey by Shibley Telhami and Zogby International, a plurality of respondents in six Arab countries said they didn't believe Iran's claims that it is not building a bomb. But 60 percent – even in the Gulf, where anti-Shiite prejudice is strongest – said Iran should be free of international pressure to stop.

While Arab leaders maintain their ties with the US, Ahmadinejad uses radical rhetoric and support for radical groups, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in Lebanon, to "outflank the authoritarian Arab regimes by appealing directly to their populaces," Mr. Dobbins says.

It's difficult to separate the Palestinian issue from Iran's public support in the Arab world. In a May survey by Abdo Saad, 79 percent of Lebanese said a nuclear-armed Iran would be good for "the Palestinian struggle against Israel."

Another factor in Ahmadinejad's Arab support is the Iranian leader's homespun image.

His face is that of a Persian average Joe. Neither a cloistered aristocrat nor a septuagenarian "gerontocrat," he appears to have convinced many Arabs that he is more like them than their own leaders.

"He always wears common clothing, like his fellow countrymen," says Magdi Radwan, the Cairo schoolteacher. "He doesn't think he's better than them."

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