"Like in Vietnam, they will incur major losses and will be compelled to quit-the matter is that some time ago they were confronted by the state but now all the people have stood up against them," the computer expert Fuad Akiki said in a RIA interview.
The Lebanese are very pessimistic about what is happening in Iraq today. "The future of Iraq is so dim and indefinite that even Americans are unaware of further developments," remarked Abdel Masikh Tarazi, Assyrian Christian school director in Beirut.
"Iraq will turn into the Lebanon of the early '80s when the country was swept by chaos and devastation and all fought against all," added the mechanical engineer Elias Semaan.
"Despite all Hussain's drawbacks, he could keep his grip on the country and prevent it from disintegration," he said. The opinion that under bad Hussain the Iraqis lived better than under the current American administration and their stooges is backed by many Lebanese.
"Hussain was by all means dictator and criminal, but at least his government ensured stability while today Iraq is threatened with falling into oblivion as a state and the life of its people has worsened," says the obstetrician Sonya Ibrahim.
"Hussain is a butcher but this does not give America the right to use police methods and boss around in a foreign country," says the Moslem Shi'ite electrician Zayid Hassan.
Hassan is certain that America has failed to succeed in resolving at least one problem since the fall of the former regime. "The Iraq war against America is beginning today rather than a year ago," he emphasised.
