>Which virtually guarantees the number of protesters will stay in the
>high-three or low-four figures.
There were tens of thousands there, so you slipped up on your first guess. Second thing is, the 2 million strong antiwar protest had political supporters of Islamist groups present: most people present, who almost certainly weren't themselves supporters at any level or remove of Islamist movements probably ignored this. I don't want to diss the American left, but you're probably assessing this through the prism of conditions that persist in the US. I think those in the antiwar movement in the UK who disagree with the stance of supporting Hezbollah against Israel are mature enough to push their own slogans and argue within the movement. However, the Stop the War Coalition has from the start pushed a hard anti-imperialist line, and at conference has voted to support the right of Iraqis to resist their occupiers. The success of that coalition has had its effect, I would suggest, in strengthening the anti-imperialist (as opposed to merely antiwar) content of the movement. That's only an educated guess of course.
The reactionary press in the UK, such as the Daily Mail, did cover the slogans such I described, but tended to put it down to a 'rumbustious' minority. I didn't see any blimpish nonsense beyond the pro-war blogosphere.
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