BEIRUT — Public opinion polls around the world routinely show that public perceptions of the United States have generally deteriorated consistently. More noteworthy, we learn this week that the British public — long the American partner in a “special relationship” — also has broadly negative views of the United States and its foreign policies.
Citizens and governments around the world respond to Washington flexing its military, economic and diplomatic muscles abroad by rejecting what they see as a hegemonic American foreign policy. They are responding on at least three separate but parallel tracks that often feed off one other, and drive many aspects of global power politics.
A small number of militants and terrorists (a la Osama Bin Laden) use indiscriminate violence. A few governments — Syria, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, among others — explicitly, often theatrically, defy Washington, and explore ways to forge a global political resistance movement against it. The third and largest response comes from the billions of ordinary citizens who do not resort to violence, but quietly reject what Washington says and does.
Two polls in recent weeks confirm this continuing trend. The 16-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey released last week shows that despite some small improvements, “the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed, and the opinion of the American people is not as positive as it once wasŠ. Indeed, opinion of the U.S. continues to be mostly unfavorable among the publics of America’s traditional allies, except Great Britain and Canada. Even in those two countries, however, favorable views of the U.S. have slipped over the past two years.” ( for more details).
The second, more striking, poll of British public opinion published by The Daily Telegraph 03 July, showed that most Britons feel the United Ststes is doing a bad job in Iraq and is indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks of it. More than two-thirds of respondents said their overall opinion of the Uniied States had worsened in recent years. When such close American allies and war-making buddies as the British express this kind of disrespect, perhaps Americans should ponder this a bit more seriously — after the 4th of July celebrations and the baseball All Star Game are over in the coming week.
Many Americans find it easy, if sincerely so, simply to write off such growing worldwide criticism of the United States as a combination of foreigners’ jealousy, obsession, spite, and a manipulated diversion of their simple minds by their own autocratic Third World governments. Others will criticize writers and politicians who raise these irritating issues. Right on cue — thanks to the neat predictability of hegemony — this is what the American embassy in London did two days ago when, commenting on the British poll, it charged that the British news media had ignored success stories about the United States. Perhaps, though repeated global surveys suggest the bigger story is that a growing majority of people around the world feel that Washington routinely ignores their concerns and their rights.
Regardless of anthropological or psychological analysis of global perceptions of the United States, the important thing is to reach some sensible consensus on this. Either American power is applied abroad in accordance with accepted global norms — as happened in the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq’s grip — or it must be checked and sheathed in accordance with the same norms.
Otherwise, we may all pay a very high price for letting current trends drift along towards greater chaos, threats, and militarism, as evident in Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan and other troubled lands. It is certain, as we already see, that demagogic and nationalistic leaders will exploit growing resentment of U.S. policies among publics around the world to forge defiant state policies, perhaps leading to more confrontations and senseless wars.
A fine analysis of this issue has just been published by Graham Fuller, former vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. In his article “Strategic Fatigue,” in the Summer 2006 issue of The National Interest (www.nationalinterest.org), he says the global system of states cannot embrace a unipolar world for very long. We may be witnessing now the backlash from “genuine global concern with the overwhelming character of American power,” as the world chips away at the current unipolar world order. Washington has alienated foreign partners and public opinion alike because of the controversial and often questionable conduct of its foreign policy on the levels of strategy, tactics and style, he argues. Therefore the U.S.’ “strategic fatigue” will likely grow “as more and more Lilliputian arise to tie new knots in the web of nets that hold down the superpower whose military power is ill suited to changing the existing political situation.”
The idea that the United States only promotes goodness, freedom, democracy and light around the world is rejected by most of the world, at a time when most of this same world sincerely covetsŠ goodness, freedom, democracy and light. Sounds like we have a mutually desirable discussion topic here — for those inclined to listen, ponder and talk, rather than to threaten, invade and shoot.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 04 July 2006
Word Count: 840
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