Poll Finds Muslim World View Of U.S. At New Low

by Jim Lobe

The survey, the latest in a series by the Pew Global Attitudes Project that polled attitudes toward the United States and international relations in 44 countries last year, also found that the United Nations has been a "major victim" of the conflict in Iraq due to the perception that it was no longer relevant.

"The war has widened the rifts between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era -- the UN and the North Atlantic Alliance," says a summary of the more than 200-page report.

In particular, strong majorities, ranging from 57 percent in Germany to 76 percent in France, in five of seven NATO countries surveyed said they support a more independent relationship with Washington on diplomatic and security matters.

At the same time, adds the report, "the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world," with overwhelmingly negative views that were confined mainly to Arab countries last summer having now spread to a much broader band, from Nigeria in the west to Indonesia in the East.

The report also includes a major section on public attitudes toward globalization, based largely on last year's 44-nation survey. Among other findings, it concluded that economic integration, strong private sectors and democratic ideals are largely accepted in most parts of the world and that the influence of multinational corporations was considered positive overall, particularly in Africa.

Previous reports by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which is guided by a broad-based international advisory board chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, have been widely quoted, especially by foes of the more-hawkish policies pursued by the administration of President George W Bush.

The 44-country poll which centered on foreign attitudes towards the United States, found a precipitous drop in Washington's favorability ratings compared to a similar poll conducted in the summer of 2000, the last year of Bill Clinton's presidency. It also found that the decline in U.S. standing was due far more to opposition to specific policies and the unilateralist course pursued by the administration than to the rejection of U.S. political or cultural values.

The new poll finds that, if anything, the negative trend established by the 2000 and 2002 surveys, has continued for a third year, despite a notable upturn in U.S. standing between March -- when polls in half a dozen European countries showed a major plunge in Washington's image -- and last month, when the most recent surveys were carried out.

In France, for example, only 25 percent of respondents rated the United States favorably in March, just before the invasion began. But after the war, favourability bounced back to 43 percent, substantially more than two months before, but still significantly less than the 63 percent approval rating that the French gave the United States in the summer of 2002.

In addition to the United States, the May poll covered 20 countries, including five West European nations, Russia, eight predominantly Muslim countries, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Israel, Brazil, Nigeria, Australia, South Korea and Canada.

Questioning some 16,000 people worldwide, it found that approval of the United States has fallen in every European country since the summer of 2002, including in those states, such as Britain, which supported Washington in the war.

Favourability ratings were highest in Israel (79 percent) and Britain (70 percent) and lowest in Turkey (15 percent, down from 52 percent in 2000), Pakistan (13 percent) and Jordan and the PA, where only one percent of respondents said they had favorable opinions of the United States.

Declines were highest in the Islamic world. In Indonesia, for example, only 15 percent of respondents expressed favorable opinions for the United States, a steep decline from 61 percent just last summer. Among Muslim respondents in Nigeria, favourability fell from 71 percent to 38 percent.

Moreover, a growing percentage of Muslims see the United States as a serious threat to Islam and express "at least some confidence" in Osama bin Laden to "do the right thing regarding world affairs." On the latter issue, solid majorities in the PA, Indonesia, and Jordan and nearly one-half in Morocco and Pakistan voiced some support for the al-Qaeda leader.

By contrast, in most countries friendly to the United States, only modest percentages expressed similar confidence in Bush. Indeed, people with unfavorable views of the lone superpower, according to the report, base most of their opinions on Bush, rather than on the United States generally. This was particularly true in Western Europe.

The survey found what it called "limited optimism" for democratic reform in the Middle East after the war and significant declines in support for the "war on terrorism."

It also found considerable criticism of U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 20 of 21 countries surveyed -- the United States being the only exception -- pluralities or majorities said they believed Washington favors Israel too much, an opinion even shared by a strong plurality of 47 percent in Israel itself.

The new results from the 2002 survey also found broad acceptance of the increasing interconnectedness of the world, with three-quarters or more of respondents saying their children should learn English.

At the same time, majorities generally viewed the gap between rich and poor growing and complained that their own situation had deteriorated over the last five years, but they tended to blame domestic factors rather than globalization. This was especially true in Africa and Latin America.

The same survey found that opponents of globalization are not making much headway in influencing views of much of the Third World, although respondents in Argentina, Brazil, Jordan and Turkey were all highly critical of certain institutional symbols of globalization, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).