There’s a new hero in the Arab world, and he doesn’t even speak Arabic.
Our man in Cairo
CAIRO: There’s a new hero in the Arab world, and he doesn’t even speak Arabic.
With his persistent jabs at America, Israel and the West, his apparent drive for a nuclear bomb and his workingman’s wardrobe of off-the-rack suits, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has captured the Arab street. While Arab leaders worry over the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran and its aggressive president, the coffee houses of Cairo are buzzing with support.
“He has the courage to stand up to America and Israel. Which other leader in the world is doing that?’’ said Ahmed Yassin, a 46-year-old bank employee, as his friends played backgammon nearby. Analysts say distress over the US invasion of Iraq has nudged Arab Sunnis to support the aspirations of their traditional rivals in Shia Iran. “There is a hunger for leadership in the Arab world, a hunger for change,’’ said Shibley Telhami, an international pollster at the University of Maryland. “Iran is reaping the benefit.’’
The Arab states are mostly led by elderly, pro-American, conservatives, like King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, or by princelings who inherited their thrones from charismatic fathers, like Bashar al Asad of Syria and King Abdullah II of Jordan. They’re nothing like Ahmadinejad, the stubborn and messianic son of a rural blacksmith. In his constant attacks on Israel, Ahmadinejad has found a ready audience. For example, while denying the Nazi Holocaust isn’t an emotive issue in Iran, “it resonates much more with the Arabs,’’ said Shaul Bakhash, a professor of history at George Mason University in Virginia.
By playing on longstanding regional issues, Ahmadinejad has managed to shift the nuclear debate from Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz to the bulldozed olive groves of Palestine — and to Tel Aviv’s own secret nuclear arsenal. “Why is Israel allowed to have these weapons and Muslim countries are not allowed?’’ said Tarek Badri, 48. “Ahmadinejad is fighting for his people’s rights.’’
In a recent poll of people in six Arab countries, a plurality said they didn’t believe Iran’s claims that it doesn’t seek nuclear weapons. Still, sixty per cent — even in the Gulf, where anti-Shia prejudice is strongest — said Iran should be free of international pressure to stop.
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