Gallup: Arab World's Opinion Of U.S. Leaders Has Improved Since Last Year -- But Still Low
A new polling analysis from Gallup shows that as President Obama prepares to tour the Middle East, the Arab world now has significantly higher approval of the U.S. leadership than they did last year under George W. Bush -- though it's still far from being a thumbs-up.
In Egypt, the approval rating of the American leadership rating last year was only six percent, to 74% disapproval -- a number that has now gone up to 25%-52%. Saudi Arabia has gone from 12%-81% last to 29%-52% now; and Syria from 4%-91% to 15%-71%, among others.
It hasn't been all positive, though. In the Palestinian Territories -- which have seen a lot of political strife thanks to the recent war with Israel -- things have gone from 13%-81% to 7%-80%.
From the pollster's analysis: "Gallup Polls show that Obama will deliver his message Thursday with an arguably stronger basis of support than his predecessor ever had in many Arab countries. Nonetheless, approval remains low and underscores the work that remains as Obama seeks to pave a new, more positive way forward."
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
To many overseas, we are just "Americans," they don't follow our politics.
We have to be realistic as to what we just subjected them to for 8 years.
It's also fair to ask, what kind of country makes George Bush its President, anyway? And twice at that? I know it beats me.
There's a lot of residual anti-Americanism, and some of it is just baseline: everybody distrusts the big guy. Still, we didn't do ourselves any favors by having Bush-Cheney as our standard-bearers.
June 2, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Along these lines-- how much can Obama actually change with his speech on Thursday? Is there anything he can say that can connect with the muslim world and be taken as substantial, or legitimately convince anyone that the way America has been behaving will change?
June 2, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that, while still very low, our rating is already way up in the region from where it was.
I think the President will be announcing initiatives unheard of in the region, actually. Bradley Burston's Haaretz article brought to our attention by Josh has some of this: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089825.html
Obama obviously intends to make a real difference, not a mere speech. There will even be something there for those Arabs who unrealistically want him to "apologize" (see today's W. Post), though not all they'd want. He's going to be the first American President ever to stand up and say, "Look, we've got a real problem here and it hurts USA and it hurts people in the region -- we just can't let this go on. Let's all take the hard steps we need to to work this out. So as of today,..." I would expect something significant that will bump us up a few points and over time maybe a few points more.
June 3, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
WHOA !!!
While reading that link I realized if you substitute the US with Israel, repuglican with Jew, and Democrat with Arab/Palestinian you'd end up with the current quagmire between both political parties in the US.
June 3, 2009 3:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
BTW I made a lame attempt at this and quickly was so disoriented I needed to put my head down. Some I'm going to trust you to your construct!
I bet he gives a significant speech tomorrow. We'l see.
June 3, 2009 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
After the US crashing the global financial markets with our highly toxic investments that were found not to be as secure as promised in the remote case of failure, many European countries have decided to treat the US as an equal rather than a leader. That's the first step in our decline, and its a big step. Because once it's taken, for the US to regain its position as world leader, will require many years of painstaking effort to right the wrongs committed during the Bu$h and repuglican administrations. And since the repuglicans aren't about to accept responsibility for their inactions, I doubt we'll ever get that position back. Obama's message to the arab world, per Krugman in the NYTimes, will be to put the onus on the people in the region to resolve their differences between themselves without relying on the US. Makes completely sense because all these years of US meddling hasn't produced a sustainable peace between administrations. And if we've lost the title of world leader, what difference would it make if they listen to us and follow our advise or not?
June 3, 2009 3:35 AM | Reply | Permalink