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POLITICS: Suspicion of U.S. Found Pervasive in Islamic World
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Apr 24, 2007 (IPS) - Six and a half years after U.S. President
George W. Bush launched his "global war on terror", suspicion of U.S.
motives remains pervasive throughout the Islamic world, according to a new
and highly detailed survey of four countries released here Tuesday.
An average of more than 75 percent of respondents across the four
countries - Egypt, Morocco and the world's two most populous Muslim
nations, Indonesia and Pakistan - said they believed that dividing and
weakening the Islamic world and maintaining control over Middle East oil
were key goals of U.S. foreign policy, according to the survey by the
University of Maryland (UM) and WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO).
And an average of two out of three respondents named "expand(ing) the
geographic borders of Israel" as a third major U.S. policy objective in
the region.
By contrast, less than one in four agreed that Washington wanted to create
"an independent and economically viable Palestinian state", despite Bush's
explicit endorsement of that goal since before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq.
Sixty-four percent of respondents in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Morocco said
another U.S. goal was to "spread Christianity in the region." The question
was not asked in Egypt.
"While U.S. leaders may frame the conflict as a war on terrorism, people
in the Islamic world clearly perceive the U.S. as being at war with
Islam," said WorldPublicOpinion.org editor Steven Kull, who also directs
the UM Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). "There's a
feeling of being under siege."
Suspicion of U.S. goals was particularly high in Egypt, by far the largest
recipient of U.S. aid in the Islamic world since it signed a peace treaty
with Israel in 1978, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Morocco, another
long-time U.S. ally.
Respondents in Indonesia and Pakistan were generally less suspicious of
U.S. motives, although large percentages of Pakistanis - 40 percent or
more - declined to answer many of the more than 50 questions included in
the survey, in part because respondents in rural parts of the country
often said they did not know enough to voice an opinion.
The survey, which was based on personal interviews of 1,000 or more
respondents in each of the four countries, also found widespread sympathy
for what they said they believe are key goals of al-Qaeda and other
violent Islamist groups.
Nearly three out of four respondents said they agreed with al-Qaeda's
objectives - if not the means - to force Washington to remove its bases
and military forces from all Islamic countries and stop favouring Israel
in its conflict with the Palestinians; "to stand up to America and affirm
the dignity of the Islamic people;" and "to keep Western values out of
Islamic countries."
Respondents showed somewhat less enthusiasm for al-Qaeda's more
religiously oriented goals, such as enforcing strict Sharia law in Muslim
countries or establishing a single state, or Caliphate, throughout the
Islamic world, although they, too, commanded strong majority support,
particularly in Morocco.
At the same time, however, majorities in each country, ranging from 56
percent in Pakistan to 82 percent in Egypt, said they thought global
economic globalisation and communications was positive for their country.
Similar support was found for democratic forms of governance.
The survey, which was carried out between mid-December and mid-February,
is the latest in a string of polls suggesting that Washington's image in
the Islamic world, particularly in Arab countries, has fallen to all-time
lows.
In a survey carried out late last year by the polling firm Zogby
International in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia and
released in February by UM professor Shibley Telhami, three out of four
respondents described their attitudes toward Washington as either
"somewhat" (21 percent) or "very" (57 percent) unfavourable. The same poll
found that Bush himself was by far the Arab world's most-disliked world
leader, exceeding even Israeli leaders who had topped four consecutive
annual surveys carried out by Zogby and Telhami since 2002.
Asked their opinions of the current U.S. government in the latest poll, a
majority of respondents - ranging from 59 percent in Pakistan to 93
percent in Egypt - said their views were unfavourable. Substantially
smaller majorities - just over 50 percent - expressed unfavourable views
of "the American people" in Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia, while two out
of three Moroccan respondents said their views of the people of the United
States were favourable.
In addition to identifying what they thought were major U.S. objectives in
the Middle East, respondents were asked to choose among three possible
options for what was "the primary goal" of the U.S. war on terrorism.
Strong majorities in Pakistan (68 percent), Morocco (72 percent) and Egypt
(86 percent) chose either "weakening and dividing the Islamic religion and
its people" or "achieving political and military domination to control
Middle East resources". An average of only 13 percent of respondents in
the same three countries said the primary U.S. goal was to "protect itself
from terrorist attacks."
The results in Indonesia were somewhat less negative. Fifty-three percent
of respondents chose one of the first two options, while 23 percent
selected the third. Telhami noted that such findings were typical of
recent surveys.
The United States was also perceived in all four countries as having an
extraordinary amount of control over events in the world. Nearly nine out
of 10 Egyptians said the U.S. exercises control over "most" (32 percent)
or "nearly all" (57 percent) "of what happens in the world today." An
average of nearly two out of three respondents in the other three
countries agreed with those assessments.
As for attitudes about al-Qaeda itself, an average of 15 percent of
respondents said they supported the group's attacks on U.S. targets; while
23 percent said they oppose such attacks but share the group's attitudes
toward the United States. Another 26 percent said they oppose both its
attacks and its attitudes towards the U.S., while 37 percent (including
two-thirds of all Pakistanis) declined to answer. Support for attacks on
U.S. targets was highest in the two Arab states, Egypt (25 percent) and
Indonesia (15 percent).
But respondents made a clear distinction between what kinds of attacks
they considered permissible. While an average of about half of all
respondents (and much higher percentages in the two Arab states) said they
either "strongly" or "somewhat" approved of attacks against U.S. soldiers
in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, only a tiny fraction - well under 10
percent - said they approved of attacks against civilians, either in the
region or in the United States.
At the same time, the survey found more ambiguous responses to questions
about al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Small pluralities in Egypt (40
percent), and Pakistan and Morocco (27 percent) said they had generally
"positive" impressions of him, as opposed to "mixed" or "negative" views.
In Indonesia, views were more evenly split.
The apparent inconsistency between those findings and strong disapproval
of attacks on civilians may be explained in part by uncertainty over
al-Qaeda's role in the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the
Pentagon in Washington DC. Across the four countries, an average of 42
percent of respondents said they didn't know (63 percent in Pakistan) who
was responsible for the attacks.
Only two percent of Pakistanis believed that al-Qaeda was responsible for
the attacks, compared to 34 percent who said they believed the U.S.
government or Israel was behind them.
Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace,
suggested that that result may reflect confusion about the group's leaders
who "20 years ago were 'freedom fighters', and now they're 'terrorists'.
Folks just don't believe al-Qaeda did this."
Opinions were more evenly divided in the other three countries: in
Morocco, 35 percent named al-Qaeda, while 31 percent said either the U.S.
or Israel; in Egypt, the breakdown was 28 percent and 38 percent,
respectively. In Indonesia, 26 percent of respondents blamed al-Qaeda,
while 20 percent said they believed the U.S. or Israel was responsible.
(END)
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