On the streets of Amman one question is on everyone's lips: "How could it have happened?" How could Baghdad fall with the bat of an eyelid into US hands?

"The Jordanian people are astounded by the images of US tanks rolling into Baghdad and statues of Saddam Hussein being brought down, because they believed that the Iraqi capital would resist a long time," a political analyst told AFP.

Engineer Samir Ezzat, 37, bitterly watched television broadcasts from Iraq showing scenes of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad.

"I am sad because the liberation of the Iraqi people was done at the hands of the Americans who were only motivated by their own interests and not the welfare of the Iraqi people," Ezzat said.

Businessman Ziad Shannak finds the developments in Baghdad hard to swallow.

"Once more the Arabs have been humiliated and deceived like the crushing defeat we faced during the 1967 war with Israel, despite the thunderous promises of victory Nasser made," he said of the former Egyptian president.

"Our region now witnesses a new colonialism and the United Nations have been stripped of its political clout and reduced to a mere non-governmental organisation that deals with charity," Shannak said.

Jordanian officials were quick to voice public concern over the future fate of Iraq while privately many sighed a breath of relief that the US-led war on their eastern neighbour that threatened their own regimes, had quickly ended.

"The Iraqi people must decide the future of Iraq and choose their own leadership at this time. No one else can do that. This is Jordan's firm position," Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher told AFP.

Information Minister Mohammad Adwan also insisted that Iraq's "future must be decided within the framework of international legality and reflect the choice of the Iraqi people, namely in governing themselves,".

"Our priority now is to stand alongside the Iraqi people to help them overcome this ordeal," Adwan told AFP, as uncertainty settled over Iraq after US troops seized control over most of Baghdad.

Privately another government official voiced relief that the "nightmarish scenario of a dragged-out war" did not materialise.

"We were concerned that the war would last a long time or that the Americans would disengage half-way, leaving Saddam Hussein firmly in place and this would have been as dangerous as having a wounded lion at Jordan's gates," he said.

"Now we can breathe easily. But Jordan still wants to see a credible regime emerge in Baghdad with which it can build strong ties of friendship and cooperation," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Former Prime Minister Taher Masri said the US victory was to be expected because of their military superiority over the Iraqi forces.

"But if the United States have achieved their military programme in Iraq, they still face the risk of losing the political programme and some negative signs are already emerging," Masri said.

Whatever the view in Jordan, the message received from the symbolic tearing down of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's towering statues in Baghdad squares is that dictatorial regimes are bound to collapse.

"The destroyed statues of Saddam, his effigies ablaze and his palaces looted are all messages to Arab leaders who control their people with force, that they, too, risk the same fate," the analyst said.

SPACE.WIRE