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POLITICS-MIDEAST: Arabs See Both US and Iran as Harming Iraq

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 29 2007 (IPS) - Large majorities of Arabs believe the United States&#39 role in Iraq is negative and want U.S. troops to leave that country sooner rather than later, according to recent surveys in five Arab nations released here, Wednesday, by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and Zogby International, a polling firm.

But significant majorities in all five nations – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon – also consider Iran&#39s role in Iraq to be negative, suggesting that popular opinion in the five countries has become increasingly leery of Iran&#39s regional ambitions since last summer&#39s war between Israel and Lebanon&#39s Hezbollah.

&#39&#39(Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad is clearly creating some real concern in the region and eating up whatever goodwill Iran had built up, particularly from its support of Hezbollah and their defiance of the U.S. and Israel,&#39&#39 said AAI president James Zogby. &#39&#39His boasting, Iran&#39s nuclear programme, and its behaviour in Iraq have frittered that away.&#39&#39

Public concern about Iran was particularly pronounced in Saudi Arabia where a larger proportion of respondents considered Tehran&#39s role in Iraq to be more negative than even Washington&#39s role. While 68 percent of Saudi respondents said they considered Washington&#39s influence in Iraq as negative, 78 percent said the same about Iran&#39s influence there.

Concern about Iran&#39s role in Iraq was less pronounced in Egypt and Jordan. In Egypt, for example, 83 percent of respondents described Washington&#39s role as &#39&#39negative&#39&#39 compared to 66 percent who said the same about Iran&#39s role. In Jordan, a nearly unanimous 96 percent of respondents said the U.S. role was negative compared to 73 percent who said the same about Iran.

The new survey, which was based on interviews with 3,400 Arabs in the five countries between late February and early March, also found the greatest fear about Iraq was the possible consequences of civil war there.

Majorities in all five countries said their greatest concern was that civil war in Iraq would spill over into the broader region, engulfing its neighbours, or that the country will split into three separate parts.

The latest survey follows two others, also conducted by Zogby International, in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, in late November and early December. Zogby International is run by James Zogby&#39s brother, John.

Those surveys found not only that Washington&#39s standing in the Arab world had hit rock bottom, largely as a result of the region&#39s disillusionment with the regional perception of Washington&#39s policies in Iraq, Palestine, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Lebanon, but also that Iran – notably its support for Hezbollah and its defiance of the U.S. – was the principal beneficiary.

&#39&#39As America&#39s numbers go down, Iran&#39s goes up,&#39&#39 James Zogby observed last December when AAI released the results of one of the two polls. He noted, among other findings, that majorities in four out of the five countries said that U.S. efforts to curb Iran&#39s nuclear programme actually contributed to their negative views of the U.S.

That conclusion was echoed by University of Maryland&#39s Prof. Shibley Telhami, an expert on Arab public opinion who designed the second of the two earlier polls which he released in February.

Six of every ten respondents in that poll said they believed that Iran had the right to pursue its nuclear programme even if its aim was to develop nuclear weapons, while less than one in four respondents said they thought Tehran should be pressured to halt its nuclear efforts. Asked to name the two greatest external threats to their countries&#39 security, close to 80 percent named Israel and the U.S. – only six percent cited Iran as one of the two.

While the latest survey&#39s findings suggest that Washington&#39s image in the region -particularly regarding its role in Iraq – has not improved much, if at all, in the intervening four months, they also suggest that Iran&#39s image has deteriorated during the same period.

&#39&#39On the one hand, there&#39s clear anger about what we (the U.S.) have done in Iraq, but there&#39s also now clear concern about what Iran&#39s game is,&#39&#39 said Zogby. &#39&#39People are saying, &#39The U.S. made a mess in Iraq, but now you (Iran) are making it worse, and you&#39re exploiting this for your own advantage&#39.&#39&#39

According to Zogby, distrust and concern about Iran&#39s regional ambitions were being voiced by the leadership and media of the same five countries, particularly since the outbreak of last summer&#39s conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but that those attitudes appear to have spread to the public, as well.

&#39&#39It&#39s possible that the Arab governments&#39 campaign of highlighting the Iranian threat has had some impact,&#39&#39 Telhami told IPS after reviewing the results of the most recent survey. &#39&#39These numbers are not surprising to me, especially in recent months as governments focused a lot on the Iranian threat.&#39&#39

Still, Telhami noted that, consistent with previous polls, Arab public opinion favours a relatively quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq despite concerns by Arab governments that Iran would be the most likely beneficiary.

Nearly three out of every four respondents in Egypt and Jordan said they favoured an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, while large pluralities in the other three countries favoured that option over withdrawal only after Iraq&#39s unity and stability are assured, maintaining current U.S. troop strength, or increasing it, as the Bush administration is currently doing. Indeed, support for the latter two options was less than ten percent in every country except Saudi Arabia.

In addition, 47 percent of Jordanian and 38 percent of Egyptian respondents said they worried more about the prospect of a permanent U.S. occupation of Iraq than about its partition, the spread of its civil war, or about the strengthening of Iran.