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by Michel Sailhan, Cairo (AFP) - The Arab Street showed it was staunchly opposed to any US-led strike on Iraq, but Arab leaders have been one step behind in presenting a united front, trying to balance divergent interests and alliances.

Anti-US demonstrations have proceeded throughout the Arab world, and even in Cairo where public demonstrations are banned authorities allowed 140,000 Egyptians to vent their anger at the United States in a stadium on February 27.

"Leave Iraq alone, you've inspected it. There are no weapons, but they keep bombing," sings popular singer Shaaban Abdel Rahim, who used to iron clothes for a living before achieving fame with his song "I hate Israel".

The government, concerned according to observers about the political gains the banned Muslim Brotherhood is making in the street, made the unprecedented move of organising its own anti-war rally in Cairo on March 5.

The rally was attended by President Hosni Mubarak's son and a speech was made by Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif.

University campuses, where the demonstrations are tolerated, have been animated with anti-war activism reminiscent of the mass rallies that took place one year ago in support of the Palestinians when Israel reinvaded the West Bank.

Pressure was further raised when Egypt's Al-Azhar university, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, called on Arabs and Muslims to rise to the defence of Iraq.

Al-Azhar "asks all Arabs and Muslims in the world to stand ready to fight to defend themselves and their sacred values" and warns that the "determination to strike Iraq is a prelude to other strikes targeting the rest of the Arab world," it said.

In Amman, Islamist parties with a strong following among the population have been calling on the moderate government to expel all US troops from the kingdom, "so that history does not testify that an Arab, Muslim country was attacked from Jordanian or Arab territory."

They have also demanded a suspension of Jordan's 1994 peace treaty with Israel, something the Amman regime solidly defends.

Arab leaders, all too aware that mass demonstrations against a common cause can quickly transform into protests against their own regimes, have tried to be seen making serious efforts to push for a peaceful solution in Iraq.

At their annual summit in Sharm El-Sheikh on March 1 Arab leaders "completely rejected" any US-led strike against Iraq or taking part in it. They called for the Iraq crisis to be solved peacefully through the United Nations.

But the statement, like those at previous gatherings, required a compromise between Iraq, which is backed by more radical regimes like Syria and the Gulf Arab monarchies such as Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain which were hosting US troops massing for the threatened conflict.

Similarly, in Doha the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) declared on March 5 its "total rejection of any strike on Iraq and any threat to the security of any Islamic state." But a draft proposal saying no facilities should be granted to the United States to launch a war on Iraq was thrown out.

The tensions between Arab leaders were perhaps best highlighted at an emergency foreign ministers' meeting on February 16, following which Kuwait accused the chairman Lebanon of steamrollering through a statement sharply critical of countries hosting US forces as part of the US-led military buildup in the region.

Mubarak, whose country relies on a large amount of annual US foreign aid, had like other moderates soft-pedalled criticism of US war plans.

In a speech read to Arab information ministers' meeting in Cairo on March 10, he reiterated a call for Iraq's "total cooperation in implementing United Nations' resolutions."

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