[Mb-civic] Arabs - It's the Policy, Stupid

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Arabs - It's the Policy, Stupid 
By Jim Lobe (Inter Press Service) 
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3162 
Saturday, July 24, 2004

If U.S. President George W. Bush thinks his "war on terror" is 
winning Arab hearts and minds, he should think about conducting it 
much differently than he has over the past two years... 

Beginning with changing his policies. 

That is the unavoidable conclusion of the latest two in a series of 
major surveys of public opinion in five Arab countries – all U.S. allies 
in the "war on terror" – released here Friday by the University of 
Maryland (UMD), the Arab American Institute (AAI) and Zogby 
International. 

"Favorable attitudes toward America have dropped precipitously over 
the past two years," said AAI Executive Director James Zogby, 
summing up the results. 

In contrast to the Bush administration's insistence that U.S. "values" 
and political ideals are behind the hostility, the findings also show 
that the Arab populations of Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi 
Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) see U.S. policies 
in the Middle East as by far the main factor in fostering the Arab 
world's growing antagonism toward Washington. 

"It's the policy, stupid," said Zogby, who added that when asked an 
open-ended question about what the United States could do to 
improve its image among Arabs, significant pluralities in each 
country called for Washington to either "stop supporting Israel" or 
"change Middle East policy." 

Attitudes toward the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq were also 
almost uniformly negative. 

"What you have is a collapse of trust in U.S. intentions," said Shibley 
Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at UMD, 
who is also a fellow at the Brooking Institution. He suggested that 
confidence in the Arab world toward Washington has plunged so 
deeply that even if Bush loses the elections in November, any new 
administration will have a very difficult time regaining trust. 

Both surveys, which were designed to be representative of the 
different ethnic and religious groups in each of the countries polled, 
were conducted in May in major cities. Some 3,000 respondents were 
personally interviewed by questioners of the same gender. 

The AAI survey, the sixth on Arab "impressions of America," covered 
general attitudes toward the United States and how they are formed, 
while the UMD survey dealt with Arab attitudes towards political and 
social issues, foreign policy and the media. 

The AAI survey found that the number of people who rated the U.S. 
"favorably" – already very low two years ago in the aftermath of the 
military campaign in Afghanistan – has since fallen into the cellar. 

Declines were most significant in Morocco (from 38 percent favorable 
to 11 percent), Jordan (from 34 to 15 percent) and Egypt (from 15 to 
two percent). Even in Saudi Arabia, where 12 percent in 2002 said 
they had a favorable opinion of the United States overall, the 
percentage that still believes that has dropped to four. 

Testing the Bush administration's contention that anti-U.S. 
sentiment in the Arab world is based on hostility to U.S. values and 
"who we are," the poll found evidence that while Arabs were less 
positive about U.S. values, products, culture and people than two 
years ago, they were far more antagonistic toward specific policies. 

While the percentage of respondents in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and 
UAE who said they felt favorably about U.S. science and technology, 
freedom and democracy, people and movies and television, hovered 
between a low of around one-third to highs of about two-thirds, only 
four percent of the same respondents said they had a favorable view 
of U.S. policy toward Arabs and Palestinians. 

Asked an open-ended question about what they first think when they 
hear "America," pluralities of respondents in every country, except 
Lebanon and Jordan, volunteered "unfair foreign policy," while a 
plurality in Jordan cited "imperialism." The ratio of negative to 
positive responses, according to Zogby, was three to one in Lebanon 
and Egypt, four to one in Morocco, Jordan and the UAE, and 15 to 
one in Saudi Arabia. 

Asked to volunteer "the worst thing" they think about with respect to 
the United States, 80 percent of the responses involved foreign policy 
issues. The two answers that were given most frequently were "unfair 
Middle East policy" and "murdering Arabs." The latter was the most 
frequently heard response in Morocco and Jordan. 

The UMD survey, which dealt more specifically with the impact of the 
Iraq war, also painted a dismal picture for U.S. policy makers

Asked whether the recent transfer of sovereignty to Iraq will bring 
positive change, more chaos or no real change at all, majorities in 
each country (except Egypt, which was not polled in the UMD survey) 
opted for the last, while about one in four respondents in Lebanon, 
Jordan and Saudi Arabia chose chaos. 

More than four out of five respondents said they considered the Iraqi 
people to be "worse off" than before the war. 

More worrisome, large majorities, ranging from 64 percent in 
Lebanon to 90 percent in Saudi Arabia, said they believed the war 
would result in more terrorism against the United States, while 
slightly smaller majorities, ranging from 57 percent in Lebanon to 82 
percent in Morocco, said the war had brought "less democracy" to the 
region. In no country did more than seven percent say they felt the 
war would bring "more democracy." 

Asked to rank five as the most likely of eight possible U.S. motives for 
the war, the UMD survey showed strongly negative views across the 
board. 

Majorities ranging between 61 percent (Jordan) and 88 percent 
(Morocco) in every country except, ironically, Saudi Arabia (45 
percent) named "controlling oil" as one of the top motivations, along 
with "protecting Israel," an option that attracted from 44 percent of 
respondents in Saudi Arabia to 82 percent of respondents in both 
Morocco and Lebanon. Next highest motive – chosen by about two-
thirds of all respondents – was "weakening" or "dominating" the 
Muslim world. 

As for the more positive options presented – ensuring peace and 
stability, bringing democracy, preventing weapons of mass 
destruction (WMD), and ending Iraqi oppression – none was rated as 
one of the five major motivations by a majority of all respondents, 
while "bringing democracy" received the lowest scores in each of the 
five countries surveyed. 

Lebanese respondents, 59 percent of whom rated "preventing WMD" 
as one of the top five motives, opted significantly more often for 
positive motives than respondents in each of the other countries, 
while the greatest cynicism was expressed by respondents in the 
UAE. 

Asked about their own sense of identity, pluralities in Jordan and 
Morocco and majorities in Saudi Arabia and UAE identified 
themselves primarily as Muslim, as opposed to a citizen of their 
country, an "Arab," or a "citizen of the world." 

Telhami said the result showed a marked rise in Muslim 
consciousness compared to previous surveys, and suggested that it 
may be evidence of a "backlash" against U.S. foreign policy, which is 
seen increasingly as directed "against Muslims." 

Asked to name the world leader they most admired outside of their 
own country, the late Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser was 
mentioned most frequently in the five countries combined and 
particularly in Saudi Arabia, where 46 percent of respondents gave 
his name. 

Next most mentioned was French President Jacques Chirac, who was 
named by one of every four Lebanese. Deposed Iraqi President 
Saddam Hussein was nominated by 21 percent of Jordanians, but 
only one percent of Saudis and four percent of Lebanese. 

Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, did best in 
the UAE, where 18 percent of respondents named him, as did seven 
percent of respondents in both Jordan and Morocco. (As a Saudi, bin 
Laden was not an acceptable choice for Saudi respondents.) 

The unifying factor behind all of these choices, noted Telhami, is the 
fact that they are "people who are seen to have defied the United 
States of America." 

For least admired world leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 
swept the board in each country – with between 61 percent and 64 
percent of respondents in each country, except Saudi Arabia (49 
percent) volunteering his name. 

Bush was the next most frequently mentioned – from 19 percent in 
UAE to 39 percent in Saudi Arabia.




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