They reflect the degree to which anger over the latest Iraq crisis is directed not against Saddam Hussein, but against the United States. Their tone is a powerful sign of just how far American credibility in the region has fallen since the glory days of 1991 when the United States was able to enlist Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and most of the gulf states in an unprecedented coalition to push Iraq out of Kuwait.
As the American members of the U.N. inspection team headed toward Amman last night, newly booted out of Iraq, there was little resembling consensus in the Arab world about how to deal with the intransigent Saddam Hussein. Indeed, the coalition that existed during the gulf war can only be described as being in utter collapse.
``There is no coalition. It is not frayed: It doesn't exist,'' was the grim assessment of Jordan's foreign minister, Fayez Tarawneh.
Egypt vehemently opposes any use of American military strength to force Saddam Hussein into compliance with the United Nations' demand for access to weapons sites. Syria now openly sides with Iraq and has recently reopened border trade with Iraq.
Virtually the entire Arab world is vehemently decrying the crippling economic sanctions against Iraq, which some of the more virulent commentators say have killed more Iraqis than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Even Kuwait, in whose defense the coalition was mounted, is defying the sanctions with an active black-market border trade in products such as computers, cars and bootlegged alcohol, according to several well-connected sources here. Officially, the Kuwaitis are simply staying out of an affair they are choosing to see as none of their business.
