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Obama’s Popularity Falls in Arab World
Barack Obama’s popularity has plummeted in the Arab world, where most people support an Iranian nuclear weapon, according to a poll released on Thursday.
The survey of almost 4,000 people in six countries will come as a blow to the White House, which has argued that positive perceptions of Mr Obama – particularly after his Cairo speech to the Muslim world in June last year – have helped retrieve US standing in the region.
The poll, organised by the University of Maryland and Zogby International, a public opinion research group, says the proportion of respondents with positive views about Mr Obama has more than halved from 45 per cent to 20 per cent since last year. Those with negative views have almost tripled, from 23 per cent to 62 per cent.
Only 5 per cent of people said they had both a favourable personal view about Mr Obama and were hopeful about his foreign policy.
People were questioned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Lebanon and Jordan.
Shibley Telhami, the expert at the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution who produced the poll, said it signalled a “complete reversal” in attitudes.
“There was never a full embrace of Obama in the Arab world, before or after the Cairo speech,” he said, arguing that instead there had been an openness last year towards the US president, based not on his personal history but his policy proposals.
In comments earlier this year, John Brennan, Mr Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, said the US needed to “demonstrate and communicate America’s vision of opportunity and progress” to provide a contrast with the ideology of violent extremism, and that Mr Obama’s Cairo speech had done just that.
Mr Telhami traced much of the decline in Mr Obama’s ratings to disillusionment about the president’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, identified by 61 per cent of respondents as the US policy they were most disappointed with.
In other findings that could dismay the US, 57 per cent of respondents said that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons it would be a positive outcome for the Middle East. Only 3 per cent said they empathised with the Jewish people if they watched programmes about the Holocaust, with 88 per cent saying they resented such material or had mixed feelings.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister who clashed with Israel on the Gaza flotilla earlier this year, emerged as the most admired leader in the poll.
Stressing the potential for instability in the Middle East, Jack Lew, deputy secretary of state, argued at a separate event on Thursday that the region could learn from Iraq, which held elections five months ago, but has yet to form a government. “We have a historic opportunity, now, to help Iraq emerge as a strategic partner of the US and a force for stability and moderation in a troubled region,” he said.
James Steinberg, Hillary Clinton’s other deputy, added Iraq was “a model for everyone … I don’t think it’s just for the region”.
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Daniel Dombey
Financial Times