Sweilim, a soldier for 35 years, said victory for the powerful U.S. military over Iraq is virtually certain. But those less schooled in military matters still hold out hope. 

Americans may defeat the Iraqi army, but "I doubt if they can claim to defeat 27 million Iraqis," said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political scientist. "The Americans will have to endure a similar defeat to the one they endured in Vietnam." 

Mokhtar Ali, a teacher escorting his students from Minya, 120 miles south, to tour a Cairo museum dedicated to what Egyptians like to think of as the Arabs' last military triumph, said Saddam Hussein already has proven himself "so strong against the United States." 

The war museum's centerpiece, a giant mural in the round, depicts the Oct. 6, 1973, assault on positions Israel had captured in the 1967 war, with 400 Egyptian tanks crossing the Suez Canal and Syrian forces pouring into the Golan Heights. 

Museum visitors pose next to tanks, fighter jets and life-size cardboard cutouts of Egyptian heroes, and listen to the narrator of a sound and light show proclaim the 1973 battle the "greatest victory in history." 

In truth, the ground Arabs gained on the first day was lost over subsequent weeks, and Israel held the military advantage by the end of the war. 

The 1973 war, Ali said, was about regaining land and pride. Similarly, in the Iraq war, Arabs faced with an invasion from all directions "have to defend their country," Ali said. 

In 1967, Israeli troops took just six days to defeat the Arabs. The 1948 war set off by the founding of Israel is still remembered among Arabs as "the catastrophe." In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, including its capital, and did not fully withdraw until 2000. 

Even the 1991 liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi invaders was seen as an Arab defeat, because outsiders had to be brought in to resolve an Arab crisis. Some still ridicule Kuwaitis for greeting American troops with sweets and flowers. 

This time, Ashraf el-Bayoumi, an Egyptian rights activist and anti-war campaigner, has seen Egyptians' surprise and elation as they follow Arab media reports focusing on Iraqi resistance. 

"If they resist for another two weeks, that's victory, because of the repercussions and dynamics it is creating in the Arab world," el-Bayoumi said. "Perhaps we are moving into an era where the people are the heroes. The Iraqi men, women and children who are resisting - we don't know their names, but they are the heroes."