From the Associated Press:

CAIRO, Egypt - It's not unusual to see Saddam Hussein's portrait at Arab demonstrations. But this one, waved at an anti-war rally in Cairo, was different. The caption read, "We love Iraq, but not" — then the Iraq leader's face to finish the thought.



As a U.S. attack on Iraq for allegedly hiding banned weapons of mass destruction appears more certain every day, Arabs appear to be cooling toward Saddam — though by no means warming to the prospect of war, or to what is seen as U.S. meddling.

Saddam once was applauded as a hero who stood up to the United States when no other Arab leader would. Today, Arabs increasingly portray him as a reckless despot who is not doing enough to save his people or his neighbors from a conflagration, and who has taken the region to war twice before.



But, as InstaPundit pointed out, not for stories like this:

Shortly after three o'clock on a hot afternoon 37-year-old Nazif Mamik Tofik, an Iraqi Kurd, approached the border post carrying two five-gallon canisters of fuel.



She hoped to cross to the Kurdish-controlled side and sell them for a pound or two, which would help feed her eight hungry children.

As she stepped up to the Iraqi checkpoint, a military policeman suddenly pulled a knife, slashed open the flimsy plastic containers and splashed petrol all over her.

Then the head of the Iraqi border guard casually walked up to her, pulled a lighter from his pocket and set her ablaze. Soaked in fuel, she began to burn like a torch. That was on Monday afternoon. Yesterday Nazif lay in Sulaimania emergency hospital, on the Iraqi side, whimpering with pain. She had third degree burns and doctors said she was lucky to be alive.