It is tempting to look at Iraq as a Hindi movie script gone horribly over the top. Saddam Hussein is Amrish Puri. Dharmendra defeated but did not quite demolish him, so now Sunny Deol has sworn to finish the task-George Bush followed by George W. Bush. Behind such black humour and the equally facile plans of Pentagon war strategists, there lies a country of 25 million, a human drama encapsulating every possible emotion. Iraq's society is more liberal and secular than any other in the Middle East; Iraq's polity is built around terrorism-the terrorising of a people by their self-proclaimed emperor.

Iraq used to be the progressive face of Arab Islam, the stabilising, moderating influence in a region of religious extremes. The energy of its educated, white-collar middle class was every neighbour's envy. Today, only a shell survives. An entire value system has collapsed. Iraq was once throbbing; now it is just tired, very tired. Humiliation in the Gulf War, 1991, has been compounded by a decade of economic sanctions. It has taken the luxury of consumerism out of the average Iraqi's life; indeed, it has consumed the life out of the average Iraqi.

Iraqis fear what American bombs may do to their children but the zeal with which they rallied around their patriarch through the war with Iran in the 1980s and then in 1991 has gone. So has the pride and swagger of the legatees of Mesopotamia, of Sumer, of Babylon. All that they are left with is nostalgia; and hope.

I DICTATE, WE DO, THEY DRIVE A couple celebrate their wedding at Baghdad's state-run Ishtar Hotel-it was once the Sheraton-amid the ubiquitous presence of the "Wise Man of the Arabs"; (right) Sardar Cars, the city's biggest auto dealer, still sells 50-60 cars a month, from Mercs old and new to pick-up trucks. Only a buccaneer elite, enriched by the parallel economy the embargo has spawned, can afford to buy.
COLD COMFORT, HOT MOVES Oil is aplenty, water is scarce. An Iraqi improvises his bathtub into a roadside "shop" to sell fellow Baghdadis what they covet most-safe drinking water. The concerns at a city party (right) are altogether different and a throwback to the time when the Iraqi capital's nightlife still roared.
GETTING ALONG GAMELY If a cursory survey of poster shops be proof, David Beckham is Iraq's favourite foreigner. His sport itself is a craze and this repaired-football salesman (left) appears confident of good business. His compatriots in a Baghdad cafe wait for their country's luck to change.
WORSHIP, HERO WORSHIP Saddam's regime is dominated by Sunnis but over 60 per cent of Iraqis are Shias. In Karbala, Shias from across the world congregate at the mausoleums of Imam Hussain and (left) Abbas, part of the Prophet's family. Meanwhile in Baghdad, a motorist dresses up his Volkswagen Beetle for his leader.