A new Pew poll of world opinion finds that approval of Pres. Obama outside the U.S. has dropped precipitously since he took office:
The 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that many believed the new American president would act multilaterally, seek international approval before using military force, take a fair approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and make progress on climate change. As the current survey reveals, few now believe he has actually accomplished these things.
Views of the U.S. in general have fallen as well among the 21 nations polled, though not as heavily. Though views of the U.S. remain somewhat higher than they were during the Bush era. Nevertheless, in a few Muslim nations opinion of the U.S. has fallen even lower than during Bush’s presidency. In Pakistan, only 7% have a positive view of Obama (for obvious reasons).
Confidence in Obama dropped most heavily in China, Japan and Mexico. Though confidence in him dropped considerably, for obvious reasons, in Muslim countries the decline was slightly less steep among them. Approval of the president’s international policies showed the steepest drops (ranging from 15-30%) in these countries as well, and also Russia.
Nowhere does the divide between U.S. and international opinion display itself more prominently than on the question of drone strikes. In the U.S. over 60% approved of them. In no other country polled was there a majority favoring the counter-terror tactic. In Russia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, China, Italy and France disapproval rates ranged from 55% to 76%. In Muslim countries the rates of disapproval were even higher.
In 2009, the world eagerly anticipated Obama’s role in bringing Middle East peace. But the belief that he’s been even-handed concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has plunged between 20-40% in countries like Japan (the highest drop), Spain, Germany, France and Britain. Even in the U.S. itself, Obama’s rating dropped 17%.
Another major disappointment around the world has been an anticipation of U.S. multilateralism in foreign affairs:
…In 2009, many publics anticipated that the U.S. leader would consider their country’s interests when making foreign policy decisions and would seek international approval before using military force. Today, relatively few believe Obama has done either.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans (66%) think Obama has considered other countries’ interests when making policy decisions over the past three years, but few around the world agree.
Many of these nations now perceive China as the world’s most important economic power. Though U.S. economic and political decline began in earnest under George Bush, Obama has done little to reverse the trend.
I think Israel and its tactics have had a big influence on Obama. Extrajudicial assassinations and the use of air strikes to target perceived enemies is something right out of Israel’s playbook. But what is alarming to me is that it also seems Obama has become as indifferent to world opinion as Israel has.
If you were the sitting president and Andrew Adler published a diatribe which asked sleeper Mossad cells assassinate the President for not capitulating to Israel in a publication out of Georgia, a bullet had gone into the white house from someone who had the word “Israel” tattooed on his neck (with no media frenzy about that tattoo — the big hint), would you sit there?
Or would you lift up your shirt and show them you have a gun, too?
Sometimes the messages are not seen by the public. But they are read loud and clear by those who need to see them.
Another question in the same vein would be, “Who was most hurt by the ‘Patriot Act’ inside the US?” (besides everyone as a result of the loss in liberty) Answer: the people who helped draft and pass it. Steve Rosen – AIPAC
His legal pleadings, publicly available for everyone to could be paraphrased basically as, “How can you accuse me of being a spy when I worked for you, a spy organization?”
Dear Mary
Do you really think the Israel Palestine conflict couldn’t have been solved if the US wanted it solved?
In this respect, Obama is no different to any US President before it.
The USA keeps the war in the middle east going, deliberately, because it needs to test it’s weapons The Arms industry is just as much to blame as the Israel Lobby here, but if it doesn’t suit the US, Israel will be dumped.
Almost all the aid the US gives Israel is conditional upon it being spent in the US.
If the US was really pro Israel, it wouldn’t be selling arms to it’s enemies. Do a head count of all weapons sales, and you can see it doesn’t benefit the US economy to solve the Middle East conflict. It pays to keep it going.
Here, you can blame Israel for not realising this, and making peace while there is still time. The US won’t be able to play this game for much longer, this is the delusion that Israeli right wingers are under. That’s why they see Obama as a threat.
When Israel becomes a liablity, it will have served it’s purpose.
That time is fast approaching, as the US gets more and more into debt.
No tears from me. Both American and Israeli right wingers need to learn a lesson they will never recover from.
“… because it needs to test it’s weapons.”
– Doesn’t it sound just a wee bit too “cold-warrish”?
Having said that, the armed forces establishments of both countries — their formidable arms industries in particular — do call the shots, promoting their own agendas, often overriding their respective societies obvious interests.
I’m still shaking my head wondering why I was the target of that tirade. Care to explain, Chayma?
You’re still spewing hasbara. The US sells more weapons to Israel than it does to any other country in the world. The “special relationship” between the two countries is freely discussed, and as I and others have discussed on other articles, the US consistently votes in Israel’s favor in the UN. I could go on and on. Your insistence that the US is not an ally of Israel stinks of propaganda.
Everything else you’ve said is already common knowledge and doesn’t need a response.
Dear Mary,
A reminder..
———
Bush hosts right-wing radio talk show hosts at White House.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/09/18/7529/bush-hosts-right-wing-radio-talk-show-hosts-at-white-house/
By Amanda Terkel on Sep 18, 2006
Friday’s off-the-record talk, set for 30 minutes, ended up lasting 90 minutes, where Bush told his guests that the war on terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose.” He also showed them the pistol Saddam Hussein had when he was captured.
I fail to see your point.
I’m afraid I don’t get it either. The arms manufacturers are war-mongers always and everywhere, Israel or the US, but even in this context, decisions have to be made on a political basis, that is, why endless war in the ME and not elsewhere, say Latin America? These decisions at the margin are political and here the US is an ally of Israel regardless of weapons sales.
“I sure hope that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahou, understands that the standing ovations [29 in total, more than any American président, ever – my comment] he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That was bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby”
And who said such an ‘antisemitic’ thing ? Tom Friedman in NYT, Dec 13 2011.
I read somewhere that when some of the Democrats in Congress didn’t seem enthusiastic enough during Bibi’s speech, Debbie Wassermen Schultz turned around and encouraged them as a teenage cheerleader at some local soccergame (‘cheerleader’ and ‘soccergame’ are my words, but that was the idea).
In “The Crisis of Zionism” Beinart writes that Bibi delievered “one of the most extraordinary humiliations of a president by a foreign leader in American history” when he replied to Obama’s statement that 1967-borders should be the starting point for renewed two-state-negotiations that there was no chance Israel will go back to ‘1967-borders.
Mearsheimer and Walt explain the “tail-wagging-the-dog” brilliantly in their book on the Israeli Lobby. And then we have the off-video from a settlement where Bibi states that he knows how to deal with the Americans. (I can’t remember his exact words).
You wrote:
“And then we have the off-video from a settlement where Bibi states that he knows how to deal with the Americans. (I can’t remember his exact words)”
What are you referring to there?
Bob is mysteriously missing Google all of a sudden 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e45AQh1SnSA
Thank you, OperationRedPill.com Staff
And take notice of what he’s saying about the Oslo Accord.
I’m astonished that this video hasn’t been translated better and entirely.
Thanks for posting the video.
Very telling.
Ultimately both Bibi and Ehud Barak studied in American institutions. That is the reason why they rose to prominence. Many Israelis have a somewhat limited view of America and rely on their American-educated leaders to “fill them in.”
Yankel,
My point was, if it suits the US economy to let the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter continue warring, it will do so by selling weaponery.
The arms and oil Lobby play a big role here. Mary isn’t at all concerned about anything that she cannot blame on Israel. That’s why shouldn’t fob away Bush’s unguarded comment about a ‘war on Islam’ being a lost cause, hence he has to call it a war on terror. Nor can Mary explain why drones are hovering over Pakistan, when if Israel really were in control of the US, the drones would be over Saudi Arabia.
I never said Israel controlled the drones. Stop playing silly games, Chayma, you’re not impressing anyone. You have no idea of what does or does not concern me, but it is quite clear to me, once again, that you’re more concerned with Israel’s image than anything else. For that reason I have already called you out as a hasbarist. Your defense of Israel over and over again makes it very obvious.
Weaponry is a huge industry, and of course, so is oil and gas, and the control of those resources. Israel continually presses the US to help it defend itself from its “enemies” in the region. The US has treaties with every player in the region except Iran and Syria to provide arms and economic aid, and in return, it expects those countries to maintain the peace with Israel. Have you paid no attention whatsoever to Egypt, specifically to the agreement to maintain the blockade on Gaza?
Mary,
You’re the one playing silly games here. You condemn Israel on the off chance that Obama might have got his great drone idea from them, but you havn’t condemned the US at all.
This is like blaming the manufacturer of a knife for making the knife used by the murderer.
You keep saying i’m excusing Israel, but i’m not. I’m making sure nobody but the US gets the blame for it’s sins.
Stop obfuscating. There is a genuine case against Israeli crimes without whitewashing American crimes,
Will you condemn the US for it’s extra judical killings if you can’t find a way to attach blame to Israel or dont’ you care?
Such a ridiculous comment that I won’t respond except to say the obvious – because I am aware of the origin of the drone industry does not mean I think all drone activity engaged in by the US has anything to do with Israel. How utterly idiotic to assume from my comments here that I do not blame the US for drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, AND the Philippines.
The next time you tell me what I am or am not concerned with, at least pay attention to what I have said and stop putting words in my mouth.
Chayma,
Israel’s number one export is arms. “Control” is something that even Americans don’t manifest over their own government. There is only influence and pressure. Right now, the Israel lobby exerts the most influence and pressure, while Israel is the most belligerent faction concerning US policy.
and, Chayma, the House of Saud is an Israeli ally. Do you think they could both be US allies without a fuss if not? Israel blocks Iran from such a friendship with the US for a reason.
A Jewish proverb says it’s the fools who don’t learn from their own bad experience and the wise who learn from others’.
Obama being one of my worst political disappointments, I suspect he’s trying to learn from his mentor’s bad experience at his first term as Governor of Arkansas.
Following his youthful ideals against the powers to be got the young Clinton out of office. Having been tenacious (and lucky) enough to later get re-elected, he continued his career path to becoming one of America’s most popular first row politicians by compromising continually.
Knowing too well he’s not likely to get a second chance to ever get re-elected, Obama is carefully considering the electoral consequences of each and every step he’s taking.
Unfortunately, the better part of the world citizenry are not part of his electorate.
Yanekel
Knowing too well he’s not likely to get a second chance to ever get re-elected, Obama is carefully considering the electoral consequences of each and every step he’s taking.
So you think Obama is one term wonder, and is acting so because of it?
I disagree with that.
There is no way, the Republicans will win the next election. That is unless they field another candidate, none of the current ones will beat Obama.
We’ll discuss this again after the election 🙂
No. Obama couches everything he does in terms of the re-election prospects. Throughout his term he has played to the dark side showing how tough minded he can be, playing ball with an Israel (that is out of control), etc. In compromising too much, he even screwed up the healthcare possibilities. He can afford to play to his opponents because he thinks he has his constituency locked up tight: After all, who are “liberal” “fair-minded” Americans gonna vote for? To vote for Mitt is roughly equivalent to slashing one’s own wrists. I think his strategists are right that he has his base locked up, thanks to the Republican’s ideological Tea Party stupidity.
I am left wondering if I have to vote for him because I really don’t want to. He is a great disappointment and I want to show it. I’ve even though of supporting Mitt on the theory that “the worse it is, the better.” ???
Mary
I’m still shaking my head wondering why I was the target of that tirade. Care to explain, Chayma?
It wasn’t a tirade at you Mary, you’re too sensitive, my guess is because you think you can use the ‘hasbara’ card against anyone who points out you’re trying to blame Israel for America’s sins.
If America were not a superior power to Israel, I could agree with you, but that’s not the case.
It’s not Hasbara, (whatever that is) and I note you couldn’t rebut anything I said, because there is no rebuttal.
Another thing, if you’re in the USA, then I presume it’s convenient to blame another country (any country not just Israel) for America’s sins. The US doesn’t need to take anything, out of Israel’s ‘playbook’. It’s bad enough on it’s own. And if you’re defending the US here, you’re part of the problem.
I’m not in the USA. Your pro-Israel propaganda stinks, Chayma. You’re not very good at it.
“you think you can use the hasbara card against anyone who points out you’re trying to blame Israel for America’s sins” is pure hasbara. It’s as absurd as the idiotic zionist claim that to be anti-zionist is to hate Jews.
There is 64 years of entertwined and symbiotic relations between the US and Israel, and I suggest you study it. Alan Hart documents it very well in his books, among many, many others. Israel would not be able to sustain its occupation of Palestine without this “special relationship” it has with the US. AIPAC is the driving force behind what the US Congress does vis a vis middle east policy. Have you ever heard of AIPAC?
My guess is that you think you can cleverly use the US to take the blame for Israel’s sins. It’s not working.
“The USA keeps the war in the middle east going, deliberately, because it needs to test it’s weapons The Arms industry is just as much to blame as the Israel Lobby here, but if it doesn’t suit the US, Israel will be dumped.”
Nonsense. Israel has a history of developing weapons and surveillance technology by testing it on the Palestinians. It sells the technology to the US.
If you don’t know what the $3 billion a year is spent on (and you obviously don’t), you should do some reading. A good chunk of the money is given to Israel as cash for it to spend as it likes. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, Israel is the only country who receives economic aid with no strings attached; it is free to spend the money as it wishes. Another part of the “aid” involves being given special loan guarantees and super-low prices on weaponry and military equipment.
The Poll above showed that over 60% Americans’ favoured drone attacks.
Americans are the clear outliers on this issue – 62% approve of the drone campaign, including most Republicans (74%), independents (60%) and Democrats (58%).
Thus, you can say Obama is acting democratically here, since even most Democrats support the drone attacks.
Here are some other interesting findings in the poll above:
In 2008, before the onset of the global financial crisis, a median of 45% named the U.S. as the world’s leading economic power, while just 22% said China. Today, only 36% say the U.S., while 42% believe China is in the top position.
from Al Jazeera:
———–
How effective are US drone strikes?
As the US confirms killing another key al-Qaeda target, we ask if its reliance on drone strikes can be justified.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/06/2012668456229408.html
———-
Praying at the Church of St Drone
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/201266145132644760.html
President Obama’s role in the ‘kill list’ is unprecedented – he can directly bypass checks-and-balances, writes author.
Mary
My guess is that you think you can cleverly use the US to take the blame for Israel’s sins. It’s not working.
Your guess is wrong. I’ve read Walt and Meirsheimer’s book, and many others and i’m well aware of the aid. Walt and Mearsheirmer didn’t say, the ‘tail wags the dog’. They wrote about the disproportionate influence the Israel Lobby has on US Foreign policy. I don’t disagree with that, but the reason isn’t soley all what you say.
You’re also off topic. This thread was about drone attacks and i’m not sure what your point is. If Israel controls the US drone attacks, why pray tell are they targeting Pakistan and Afghanistan?
Why isn’t the US using drone using drone attacks on Palestinians?
Why is the US public supportive of drone attacks?
Do not ever attempt to convince me this rogue is blameless.
I am not off topic, Chayma. We are talking about the business of drones. As I mentioned above, I never said Israel controls the US drone attacks. How utterly ridiculous; I suggest you take more time to read and less to try to argue. The rest of your comment is pure absurdity.
Mary,
I think Israel and its tactics have had a big influence on Obama. Extrajudicial assassinations and the use of air strikes to target perceived enemies is something right out of Israel’s playbook.
The US has a long history of extra judical assassinations.
America’s trinity of terrorism
The network of U.S.-sponsored terrorism now on global display relies on death squads, disappearances and torture.
http://www.salon.com/2007/12/14/unholy_trinity/
In Latin America, Washington supported the assassination of suspected leftists at least as early as 1954, when the CIA successfully carried out a coup in Guatemala, which ousted a democratically elected president. But its first sustained sponsorship of death squads started in 1962 in Colombia, a country that then vied with Vietnam for Washington’s attention.
Having just ended a brutal 10-year civil war, its newly consolidated political leadership, facing a still unruly peasantry, turned to the U.S. for help. In 1962, the Kennedy White House sent Gen. William Yarborough, later better known for being the “Father of the Green Berets” (as well as for directing domestic military surveillance of prominent civil-rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr). Yarborough advised the Colombian government to set up an irregular unit to “execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents” — as good a description of a death squad as any.
Was the poll even necessary to denote the disappointment in Obama’s apparent lack of change? The “great” Cairo Speech that earned him an Emmy, I mean, Nobel Peace Prize, was scoffed at by many, including notably, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, who was the first to call for action, not words. Although Ayatollah Khamenei does not enjoy uniform support among his own people, he does enjoy a more homogenous and popular support among non-Iranian Muslims (even Sunnis). Some of them are even more loyal to him than many Iranian citizens.
However, even so, no matter what these polls say, the rest of the world is still scratching their head over how “zee stupid Americans re-elected Bush in 2004”. As it was, the big fete for Obama was really a fond farewell to a terrible past.
Thus, it follows with a good degree of certainty that the same respondents to this poll still wouldn’t support a Republican as POTUS. In fact, that would probably get a much higher disapproval rating.
“Though U.S. economic and political decline began in earnest under George Bush, Obama has done little to reverse the trend.”
I agree with most of this post, but the sentence above has me in the unusual position of wanting to defend Obama a little bit. I think Krugman’s position is correct –the stimulus should have been bigger and the Obama camp seemed to talk themselves into believing that just because they got the biggest stimulus that was politically attainable, it would therefore be adequate. Well, it wasn’t, and the Obama people keep making fools of themselves every time they claim the economy is turning a corner, only to see that it hasn’t.
But the Republicans who oppose anything except throwing more money at rich people are the real villains here.
I wasn’t referring to our domestic economic decline. I was referring to our economic decline on the world stage especially compared to the rise of China.
As we don’t have a Facebook account yet, we are going to post this comment targeting the latest entry regarding Shel Adelson.
Richard, we don’t agree that accusations of foreign espionage by Israel utilizing people like Jon Pollard, groups like AIPAC or the ADL, is equivalent to anti-Semitism. It is hardly a lie that Shel Adelson is a staunch right-wing Zionist as well. Have you read Israeliadvocate.net, for example, to see how Shel Adelson and his constituents think? “My allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States BUT [emphasis mine] when it comes to the defense of the State of Israel…” blah blah blah, more semantic justification about why it’s okay to commit treason for Israel as an American citizen.
Thus, idiots, like the person who runs that website, do actually commit foreign espionage for the State of Israel and such an accusation has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. That is simply a race card, which consequently scapegoats Judaism for the crimes of political fundamentalists.
To the contrary, we believe that sort of behavior is below Judaism.