rssPoll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 6:00 am
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President Barack Obama on Wednesday (epa/ZUMApress.com)
A year after President Obama’s speech in Cairo vowing to reset relations with the Muslim world, Muslims worldwide are telling pollsters about their disillusionment with what they consider unfulfilled expectations.
According to the Pew Center’s new survey of global attitudes (PDF), released Thursday morning, citizens of Muslim nations report disproportionate antipathy to Obama’s foreign policy. With the exception of Indonesia, where Obama spent a portion of his childhood, Muslims are the exceptions to the Pew poll’s findings that eighteen months of the Obama administration have seen a surge of international support for the United States after the public-opinion troughs of the Bush administration.
[Security1] “The Pew results reflect growing dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies, as many Arabs and Muslims are disappointed that Obama has not lived up to his promises, especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Marc Lynch, a George Washington University professor and the co-author of a recent Center for a New American Security report measuring Obama’s global engagement efforts. “They don’t see his actions matching his words, and until they do then it isn’t likely that there will be a sustained recovery in America’s image.”
In Jordan, the U.S. approval rating has fallen to 21 percent. It’s at 17 percent, the lowest of any countries Pew surveyed, in Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan. And this comes after the Obama administration has presided over the largest non-military aid package to Pakistan — the $7.5 billion, five-year Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill — in history.
“Opposition to key elements of U.S. foreign policy remains pervasive,” Pew analyzes, “and many continue to perceive the U.S. as a potential military threat to their countries.”
The news is not universally negative. Nigerian Muslims give Obama a 70 percent approval rating, up from 61 percent in 2009. But they’re the outliers. In Egypt and Lebanon, Obama’s ascendance — and the departure of George W. Bush — elevated Muslim attitudes toward the U.S. somewhat: 25 percent of Egyptians reported favorable opinions of the U.S. in 2009, up from 20 percent a year earlier; Lebanese Muslims in 2008 had given the U.S. a 34 percent favorability rating, which rose to 47 percent in 2008. Now Egyptian Muslims have reverted to their pre-Obama 20 percent favorability rating. Lebanese Muslims have settled into a 39 percent favorability rating.
More ominous from the perspective of Obama’s Cairo speech, Muslims express a sentiment directly opposite the speech’s offer of partnership: They fear that the U.S. will attack them. Majorities, and sometimes large ones, of respondents in Egypt (56 percent), Lebanon (56 percent), Indonesia (76 percent), Pakistan (65 percent), Jordan (52 percent) and Turkey (56 percent) believe the U.S. is a potential military threat. That shouldn’t be surprising: Pakistan, despite being a Major Non-NATO Ally of the U.S., is currently battered in its tribal areas by CIA drone strikes, a step the U.S. has taken in response to what it considers insufficient Pakistani military action against al-Qaeda-aligned extremist groups. In Cairo, Obama pledged that the U.S. “is not, and never will be, at war with Islam,” but many Muslims worldwide believe that the U.S. still has them in its crosshairs.
Support for the Afghanistan war and U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Muslim countries is also anemic. Lebanon is the only Muslim country surveyed by Pew where even 20 percent believe that the U.S. should keep fighting in Afghanistan. (Neighboring Pakistan? Seven percent.) While support for U.S. counterterrorism efforts have grown in non-Muslim countries since Obama took office, it’s at 18 percent in Egypt, 12 percent in Jordan, and 47 percent among Nigerian Muslims.
Several counterterrorism experts believe the U.S.’s counterterrorism efforts will ultimately be hobbled if they run into a headwind of Muslim antipathy. Malcolm Nance, a retired veteran military intelligence officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, argues in a new book that rather than attempt to change Muslim attitudes, a more productive strategy would involve moving the conversation to al-Qaeda’s apostasy. Nance code-names this approach CIRCUIT BREAKER, and writes in “An End to Al-Qaeda” that subjecting al-Qaeda to a “deep analytical dissection of their religious motives” can provide a path to “a new era for reconciliation and cooperation with the Muslim street.” It would also provide a platform for popular acquiescence to military or intelligence action against al-Qaeda — or at least limit blowback from it.
The administration appears to be attentive to the challenges, even if it hasn’t figured out a programmatic way to overcome them. Last month, the Pentagon quietly established a new office to ensure that military efforts don’t inadvertently undermine the administration’s broader promotion of the rule of law around the world.
Lynch, who also recently evaluated Obama’s counterterrorism efforts for CNAS partially through the prism of Muslim acquiescence, disputed that the Pew numbers demonstrate that Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world was in vain. “It’s more that he said he would do things, but thus far hasn’t delivered,” Lynch said, “so the words lose their meaning. It’s a real problem for the broader counterterrorism strategy, since winning over mainstream support is absolutely key to the strategy.”
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38 Comments
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[...] the original post: Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy … By admin | category: GEORGE WASHINGTON University | tags: arab, global-engagement, lynch, [...]
Pingback posted June 18, 2010 @ 9:12 am
[...] their disillusionment with what they consider unfulfilled expectations. … See more here: Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy … Comments [...]
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[...] and Egypt, where less than one in five individuals approve of U.S. policy, according to the Washington Independent. The Pew Center’s findings are available [...]
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Comment posted June 18, 2010 @ 3:50 pm
“It’s more that he said he would do things, but thus far hasn’t delivered,[...] so the words lose their meaning.”
The epitaph of the Obama administration on just about every subject of importance.
Pingback posted June 18, 2010 @ 7:33 pm
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[...] Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy « The Washington Independent [...]
Pingback posted June 19, 2010 @ 3:58 pm
[...] like so much else associated with Barack Obama, there was a lot of raised expectations but not much follow through: A year after President Obama’s speech in Cairo vowing to reset relations with the Muslim world, [...]
Pingback posted June 20, 2010 @ 1:39 pm
[...] See also: How Obama lost Muslim hearts and minds Poll: Obama’s ranking in Muslim world slides over Mideast Obama’s ratings ebb in Muslim world Poll Shows Muslims Leery of U.S. Global poll shows Muslims leery of US and Obama Muslims around the world less approving of Obama, poll finds Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy [...]
Pingback posted June 20, 2010 @ 6:19 pm
[...] Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy … [...]
Comment posted June 20, 2010 @ 7:11 pm
I can understand dissatisfaction with the President.
I don't like not prosecuting torturers..
I don' like rendition and permanent detention
I don't like military commissions
I don't like domestic spying by private companies or the pentagon
I don't like having special forces in 75 countries
I don't like a policy that says you can murder American Citizens in foreign countries
I don't like “Political” justice that is different for different criminals
I don't like no help for the unemployed whose taxes helped Wall Street and others.
I don't like talk the talk and don't walk the walk
I don't like a Constitutional Scholar that disregards and ignores the Constitution
I don't like the ignoring of the Privacy laws
I don't like a Supreme Court that thinks corporations and private persons are equal
I don't vote for politicians I don't like.
Comment posted June 20, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
Its really been the case. I think we should have policies should be supportive for whole world. Muslim countries are creating problems but those should be dealt in a more easier way.
Pingback posted June 21, 2010 @ 12:20 am
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Pingback posted June 21, 2010 @ 1:49 am
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Pingback posted June 24, 2010 @ 10:57 am
[...] Democratic Party in droves. The Jewish community, understandably unhappy with Obama, and yes…the Muslim community isn’t happy either. Any chance that Obama and the Dems will woo the Catholic vote back to them? No way. But hey, they [...]
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Comment posted July 7, 2010 @ 3:42 pm
Arabs and Muslims are disappointed that Obama has not lived up to his promises, especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict,
Yes They want to make Israel Bow to its foes wanting to dis arm them seamingly repeating the same Pre World War Two plots these views are nothing new The Links to World War Two an the bad side of Muslems http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/926.
Go Israel Esther 8:11, The United states has ben standing in the way of the Muslems sence world war two, funny thing is The star of David is on the United States Army Cest.
One of the reasons they want to stop Israel so bad from building is that means the Underground Tunnels an Bunkers would be uncovered, I say Build Build Go ISrael Vote out the Muslem Democrat Obama Thank God for Term Limits Psalms 109:8 Let his days be few an let another take his place.
Bruce Anderson
Writing.com
Pingback posted July 10, 2010 @ 11:41 am
[...] Poll Reveals Growing Muslim Antipathy to Obama Foreign Policy … [...]
Comment posted August 4, 2010 @ 2:35 am
I don't like a policy that says you can murder American Citizens in foreign countries
Comment posted September 2, 2010 @ 12:21 pm
I don't like no help for the unemployed whose taxes helped Wall Street and others.
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