As I discussed the last time I testified to this subcommittee, in the world as a whole negative views of the United States have increased sharply in recent years. A key factor contributing to these feelings is that the United States is perceived as unconstrained in its use of military force by the system of international rules and institutions that the US itself took the lead in establishing in the post war period.
Today I will focus on attitudes in the Muslim world. Clearly the Muslim world is of particular interest as it is a major source of violence against the US. As you have already heard, it is also an area of the world with particularly negative feelings toward the United States.
The question I wish to address today is whether this is important. It is not self-evident that it is. Popularity is not intrinsically good.
In particular I want to address the question of whether negative feelings toward the US have an important impact on the US effort to deal with al Qaeda and its related groups.
In this context some have argued that what is important is not that people in the region like the US, but that they fear it. When forced to make a choice between the US and al Qaeda, it is surmised, this fear will increase the likelihood that people in the region will choose the US.
Others have argued that negative feelings toward the US drive Muslims into the arms of al Qaeda; that people in Muslim countries are so angry at the US that this leads them to actively support al Qaeda in its fight against America.
According to our research, neither of these views is quite correct. However, I will say from the beginning that
our research does show that anti-American feelings do make it easier for al Qaeda to operate and to grow in the Muslim world.
This conclusion is based on a review of publicly available surveys from the Islamic world as well as the in-depth study of Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia that we conducted this year in conjunction with the START Center at the University of Maryland. START is a center of excellence funded by the Department of Homeland Security and stands for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism. The study included focus groups which I conducted in all four counties as well as in-depth surveys. Detailed data from these studies can be found at our web site
www.WorldPublicOpinion.org.
Not surprisingly we did indeed find negative views toward the US government even though the governments of the countries surveyed, by and large, have a positive relationship with the US government. Most negative were the Egyptians—93% expressed an unfavorable view with 86% very unfavorable. In Morocco, 76% had an unfavorable view with 49% very unfavorable. In Pakistan, 67% had an unfavorable view with 49% very unfavorable. The most moderate responses were in Indonesia where 66% did have an unfavorable view but a more modest 16% had a very unfavorable view.
However these numbers do not capture what I think is the most important dynamic in the Muslim world today.
For decades, polls in the Muslim world and the statements of Muslim leaders have shown a variety of resentments about US policies.
Muslims share the worldwide view that the US does not live up to its own ideals of international law and democracy. There have also been specific complaints that the US favors Israel over the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole, that the US exploits the Middle East for its oil and that it hypocritically supports non-democratic governments that accommodate its interests. These attitudes persist.
But now there is also a new feeling about the US that has emerged in the wake of 9-11. This is not so much an intensification of negative feelings toward the US as much as a new perception of American intentions.
There now seems to be a perception that the US has entered into a war against Islam itself.
I think perhaps the most significant finding of our study is that across the four countries, 8 in 10 believe that the US seeks to “weaken and divide the Islamic world.”
We do not have trend-line data to demonstrate that this is something new. But in the focus groups this was described as something that has arisen recently from American anger about 9-11.
America is perceived as believing that it was attacked by Islam itself and as having declared war on Islam. People repeatedly brought up the fact that President Bush’s used the term “crusade” and cited this as evidence of these underlying intentions.
(An attitude that I see readily displayed on this forum -slashy)
In this context it is not surprising that three out of four respondents favor the goal of getting the US to withdraw its military forces troops from all Islamic countries.
Most disturbing there is widespread support for attacks on US troops. Overall about half of all the Muslims polled approve of attacks on US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf. Support reaches as high as nine in 10 in Egypt. It appears that
American troops stationed throughout the region are widely perceived as occupiers.
