The images that flashed across millions of television sets from Saudi Arabia to Morocco were like salt poured into a wound. They inflamed the pain of humiliation and impotence that haunts the Arab world from past failure, in war and peace, and make many ask: “Why can’t we stop the West from imposing its will? Why don’t we have collective power?’’

There was little love for Saddam, but Arabs across the region took pride in the notion that he would defend Baghdad in the tradition of Saladin Ayoubi and other great warriors. Then, practically before the fight had really begun, the defiant Saddam was gone, along with the army. The sense of deflation and disillusionment in the Arab world was palpable.

“The Iraqis are sick,’’ said Fatima Mehio, a Lebanese who used to live in Iraq, as the jubilation in Baghdad streets turned to looting. “When they get their health back, maybe they will fight. But right now, they are completely lost, like all Arabs.’’ With Baghdad’s fall and the Palestinian intifada continuing, Arabs throughout the region say they feel besieged and uncertain. They ask, “What’s next?’’ but have no idea how to respond. Some believe the domino theory that Syria and Iran are next on the US target list. Many want democratic reform in their countries, though few believe their leaders will provide it willingly. Many, feeling betrayed by the trappings of modernity and globalization, seek refuge at religious places.

“America is not going to be content with Iraq,’’ said Mohammed Sebai, a 32-year-old engineer. If there is anything on which Arabs agree, it is that the war in Iraq has deepened divisions in the Arab world, fed the fires of extremism and served as a reminder that nothing worked out quite as Arabs thought it would when they reveled in the heady days of the oil bonanza a generation ago.

Oil didn’t buy political power. Confrontation with Israel didn’t bring victory, and peace didn’t bring stability. The Palestinians did not find statehood, and the democratic movement that swept through Asia, Africa and Latin America bypassed the Arab world without a glance.

“The Arab system is in complete disarray,’’ said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at American University in Cairo. “Collectively, we are unable to take decisive or creative action. Our regimes have failed us so many times even when solutions were clear. Now we see Iraq — civilian casualties and looting, the American presence, our inability to stop the war — and it only adds to our sense of frustration.’’ There is a growing belief here that Arab inaction opened the door for the US-led war against Iraq.

It was, after all, Syria, Jordan and Egypt that helped Saddam break UN sanctions and that nudged him back into the Arab mainstream, thus prolonging the regime’s life as well as the continued suffering of the Iraqi people. It was a suffering that Arab governments mourned mostly when responsibility could be laid at the US doorstep with the outbreak of war.

“Yes, the Arabs should have gotten rid of Saddam themselves,’’ said Hussein Shobokshi, a Saudi businessman. “The Arabs should have mounted a total push for disarmament. They allowed the genie (Saddam) to come out of the bottle again’’ after the 1991 Gulf War.

With the Arab League balkanized into clusters of states and with the Arab world having no political or military power center, Arabs are getting confused. Fundamentalists find the atmosphere today a fertile ground for recruiting those who feel deluded by their weak leaders and believe the United States no longer represents worthy values or principles. “People are angry,’’ said Taher Masri, former prime minister of Jordan.

“You go to a rich house, a poor house, the house of an American-educated man, you find the same thing: An accumulation of anger. There is a big gap between Arab governments and the people. I think this is taking dangerous turns. There will be more extremism, more suspicion of the West.

“We, as Arabs, have failed to do many things. The rulers have kept their tight hold on the populace. Arab rulers have brainwashed their people, allowing no dissension, no opinions, no democracy. All efforts, they said, should go to facing the enemy, and the enemy was Israel.

“In five years America will not find people like me who are willing to compromise, who want Western standards, Western ideas, because we as a people are becoming insulated, introverted, closed.’’

Many US diplomats in the region admit privately they are as dismayed at Washington’s regional policies as are the Arabs. They say outrage over the Iraq war and inattention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have made hard-liners more powerful and dangerous and turned the middle ground into a caldron of anti-Americanism. Hardly an Arab today would dare defend the US invasion of Iraq because, as one editor put it, “no one wants to be seen defending American policy.’’

“For me, the war has divided the world into two camps,’’ said Abu-Ila Maddi, a Cairo political activist. “There is the camp of justice and peace, and the camp of aggression that wants hegemony. The danger is that hatred building up toward the second camp could turn against anything that is American — American business, American people, not just American policy.’’