Word: arabized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...cast Saddam merely as a gangster is to misunderstand not only why he invaded Kuwait but also why he has gained so much popular support among the "Arab masses." Saddam's propaganda variously portrays him as Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King who destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C., or as Saladin, the Kurdish warrior who fought off the Crusaders...
Saddam also fancies himself as an Arab version of Otto von Bismarck. In ! Europe more than 100 years ago, the Iron Chancellor fused German-speaking principalities into one mighty nation. Saddam remembers as well his patron Gamel Abdel Nasser, who organized Arab pride and resentment against Western hegemony. Saddam's ambition has been to use Iraqi muscle and achievement to unite the Arabs and thereby re-create the vast Abbasid Empire, which lasted 500 years. In that sense, the war in the gulf is transpiring in a time warp. It is a retrospective vision...
Centuries of foreign domination have left Arabs with a sense of violation, of second-class status. When communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the feeling of vulnerability deepened. Arabs found themselves without strategic allies to help them counter Israel's -- and, by extension, America's -- power. George Bush's new world order did not seem to promise much for the Arabs, who militarily remain weaker than Israel. Saddam's answer -- standing up to the world's only superpower -- thus struck a chord within the Arab psyche...
...hate Saddam," explains an Iraqi woman. "But it was you, the United States, that made us support him when you sent your troops to Arab soil to attack an Arab country." An Arab diplomat says, "He anticipated and welcomed some U.S. reaction. That's part of his strategy for making himself bigger. When you have a strong enemy, that makes you stronger...
With a certain brutal genius, Saddam has worked three Arab themes: poverty, Palestinians and piety. The Aug. 2 heist of Kuwait harmonized with the profound resentments that many Arabs harbor in regard to the oil sheiks. "People do not like the Kuwaitis," a Cairene named Mohammed Fawzy said last week. "The Kuwaitis are always in the nightclub and casino. All they think about is money. They think they can buy anything." The mass of Arabs recoil from the injustice of oil wealth that buys Scotch and an opulent life for the sheiks' Cairo holidays during Ramadan and leaves so many...