A rising anti-American tide

verfasst von Popeye, 05.12.2002, 15:50

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Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

A rising anti-American tide
Brian Knowlton/IHT International Herald Tribune
Thursday, December 5, 2002

War with Iraq would even alienate friends, survey finds

WASHINGTON A U.S. war with Iraq would further fuel already
considerable anti-American sentiment, which has grown
pronounced in many Muslim countries in recent years, and it
would divide Americans from the publics of some traditional
allies, a global opinion survey has found.

The poll of 38,000 people in 44 countries, conducted by the
nonpartisan Pew Research Center in association with the
International Herald Tribune, found strong public opposition in
Muslim countries for a war on Baghdad, though some of those
countries would be expected to play an important role on the U.S.
side.

The Turks, skeptical of U.S. motives and divided on the threat
Baghdad represents, oppose — by a majority of more than 80
percent — any U.S. use of Turkish military bases for the
prosecution of a war. They believe the United States seeks to
punish a refractory Muslim state, not to bring stability and
security to the region.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States drew widespread
sympathy abroad. But as the survey shows, that sympathy has
dwindled in the publics of several countries, testing even the
support of traditional allies. Huge majorities in France and
Germany, as well as Russia, oppose the use of force to depose
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

The people of nearly every Muslim country op posed the war on
terrorism, including those out of the key conflict areas, such as
Indonesia and Senegal. More than half of Lebanese expressed
opposition to the U.S. war on terrorism, as did about 8 in 10
Egyptians and Jordanians.

Among the Muslim countries surveyed, only the people of Mali
and Uzbekistan supported it. (Official Uzbek support for the U.S.
campaign in Afghanistan has brought improved U.S. ties and some
economic benefits.)

Even as Washington has inaugurated a global campaign to
improve its image in Muslim countries in hopes of eroding
support for terrorism, the poll found substantial support in many
Muslim countries for the notion that violence is justifiable in
defense of Islam.

Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. secretary of state, called that
result ‘‘absolutely stunning’’ and ‘‘very difficult to absorb.’’
Albright, who chairs the Pew Global Attitudes Project, said that
‘‘clearly, an awful lot of work needs to be done for us to
understand Islam, and for Muslim nations to understand what
we’re about.’’

More than 1 in 4 respondents in Ghana, Indonesia, Senegal and
Uganda said that suicide bombing was justifiable in defense of
Islam; 1 in 3 in Pakistan and Mali said so; more than 4 in 10 in
Jordan, Bangladesh and Nigeria agreed; and so did more than half
in Ivory Coast; and 73 percent in Lebanon.

The notion of justifiable violence found the lowest level of
support among the Muslims of Tanzania, Turkey and Uzbekistan,
all below 20 percent. (The question was asked only of Muslim
respondents; the Egyptian authorities did not allow it to be
asked.) While discontent with the United States has grown
globally, the Pew report notes, ‘‘true dislike, if not hatred, of
America is concentrated in the Muslim nations of the Middle East
and in Central Asia.’’ This was strikingly so in Egypt, where only
6 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of the
United States, compared with 69 percent unfavorable; and in
Pakistan, with 10 percent favorable to 69 percent unfavorable.
The survey, conducted in late summer and early fall, at a time
when debate on Iraq was reaching a crescendo in the United
States and abroad, found deep skepticism about U.S. motives,
particularly in Muslim countries. ‘‘Some of these countries think
our war on terrorism is targeting Muslim countries,’’ said
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. While
majorities in Britain, France and Germany agreed with Americans
that the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein was to remove him
from power, majorities want this to happen peacefully. In
contrast, 6-in-10 Americans back military action to depose
Saddam. There were widespread fears that a war with Iraq would
lead to new terrorism. Two-thirds of Turks said that it would, as
did majorities in Russia, France, Britain and Germany. A
considerable 45 percent of Americans said the same. In many
regards, the survey showed that the Bush administration message
on Iraq — that Baghdad threatens regional stability and world
peace by backing terrorists and seeking weapons of mass
destruction — has had a skeptical hearing. Overwhelming
numbers of people in allied nations did see Iraq as a threat to
regional stability and world peace, rating it above North Korea
and Iran.

Even so, the French, Germans and Russians viewed the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the subject of far less official U.S.
attention — as more threatening to Middle East stability than
Saddam’s continued rule. And ‘‘American motives for using force
against Iraq are still suspect,’’ Kohut said. A belief that the real
U.S. motive was control of Iraqi oil fields was widespread,
though less common in the United States. Seventy-five percent of
the French and a similar share of Russians subscribed to a
war-for-oil view, as did 54 percent of Germans, and 44 percent
of the British.

Just one-fifth of Americans saw oil as the chief U.S. motivation,
while two-thirds cited an Iraqi threat to security. The U.S. image
has suffered seriously in much of the Muslim world from a sense
that Middle East troubles have been ignored and Muslim
countries targeted in the war on terrorism. This has been notably
true in two countries central to the U.S. response to terrorism and
Iraq: Turkey and Pakistan. ‘‘The number of people giving the
United States a positive rating has dropped by 22 points in Turkey
and 13 points in Pakistan in three years,’’ the Pew report said. It
has also fallen in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country,
by 14 points. Some of the biggest drops in favorable foreign
views toward the United States appeared linked either to the war
on terror or the threats to Iraq. The U.S. favorability figure in
Germany, where the possibility of war on Iraq is deeply
unpopular, dropped to about 60 percent this year from nearly 80
percent two years ago; in Indonesia, a mainly Muslim country
facing U.S. pressure to crack down on terrorists, U.S. favorability
dropped 14 points, to 61 percent; in Turkey it fell to 30 percent
from just over 50 percent; and in Pakistan, to 10 percent from 23
percent.

Quelle & Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune

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• A rising anti-American tide - Popeye, 05.12.2002, 15:50
  • Re: A rising anti-American tide - Henning, 05.12.2002, 16:06
    • Re: A rising anti-American tide - apoll, 05.12.2002, 17:37