"Our Prophet did not run for office in any election ... he won the war against the infidel". ALTHOUGH attempts at linking President George W. Bush to the Arabs have generated a veritable industry in the past two years, there is evidence that most Arabs favor his Democratic Party challenger Sen. John F. Kerry. A Zogby poll taken this month shows that in the November presidential election Kerry is likely to collect more than two-thirds of the Arab-American vote. A similar pattern is emerging in the Arab world itself. "If it were up to us, it would be 60 percent Kerry, 40 percent Bush," says Iyad Abu-Chaqra, an Arab columnist who has followed American politics for years. "Most Arabs have one dream this year: to see George W. Bush booted out."Dislike for Bush has created the most curious Arab coalition in a long time. The pan-Arab nationalists are angry at Bush because, toppling Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in Baghdad, he destroyed the illusion of a "strongman" leading Arabs to unity and socialism. "It may take a generation before anyone talks of Arab unity without being laughed out of the room," says columnist Ahmad Rabii. "Those who dreamed of an Arab superpower will never forgive Bush." The pan-Islamists also dislike Bush, but for different reasons. They see his talk of democracy as an attempt at preventing them from establishing their "ideal Islamic" system based on the Shariah rather than elections. Bush's "Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative" is seen by Islamists as "a plot to impose a Western model." "The Muslim world is not a blank sheet on which Mr. Bush could draw what he likes," says writer Walid Abi-Merchid, who would vote for Kerry if he could. Opposition to Bush's plans for democratization in the Middle East is put even more dramatically by Muhammad Shariatmadari, a mullah of Arab origin now acting as an advisor to Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi. "Bush is trying to develop an American Islam," Shariatmadari says. "He thinks that Americans will not be safe in their homes until the Muslim world is dominated by pro-U.S. governments." That view is echoed in sermons preached at mosques throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States in recent weeks with an eye on the forthcoming American election. One theme of these sermons is that Bush's call for free elections and reform in the Muslim world amounts to "an act of cultural aggression." More.....