efforts to portray his current struggle as one of Islam against the infidels have paid off in the popular imagination. (The Iraqi president's eight-year war against Iran's fundamentalist Muslim regime is rarely mentioned.) As children race to their mock battles in Amman schoolyards, they call for Saddam to defeat the Americans and Israelis as Saladin defeated the Christians to retake Jerusalem eight centuries ago. "The word 'crusade' is flashing before us," says Kamel Abu Jaber, a Jordanian political scientist. "This is the Middle East. Always there is an interchange between myth and reality." Saddam's zealous message has not been limited to his neighbors. In Borneo, a Muslim realm, 18 Indonesian newborns reportedly were named Saddam Hussein during the first two weeks of the war. In south Lebanon, anyoneor anything deemed gutsy or tough is called "Scud."

In Jordan, where the government tries to remain neutral but people in the streets support Saddam, the Iraqi dictator has attained mythical attributes. "I heard that the first rocket that hit Israel--Saddam fired it with his own hands," says Ghada, an 11-year-old girl. Stories of last week's attack on Khafji resonate with imagery from the era of Sinbad and Aladdin. By one account, the town's defenders were caught off guard because each night before the attack the Iraqis sent riderless camels with lights tied to their saddles to wander across the lines and unnerve the Saudi troops.

Saddam has also developed the mystique of a multimedia star. Watching the televised war as if it were a cartoon, Jordanian boys have put