World Opinion of Obama Greatly Exceeds that of Bush

[Time for change]

World opinion is extremely important to the success of a nation’s foreign policy. In fact, it could be said that in most circumstances world opinion is far more important than a nation’s military might, since favorable world opinion creates friends and unfavorable world opinion creates enemies.

This fact was well recognized by our Founding Fathers when, in announcing our independence from Great Britain, they stipulated that “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that (we) should declare the causes which impel (us) to the separation". And indeed they did.

So important is the friendly collaboration of the United States with the rest of the world, that it is widely recognized today that our failure to join the League of Nations following World War I was a major contributing factor to the onset of World War II. This fact was not lost on President Roosevelt, who during World War II conceived the United Nations, nor on President Truman, who brought FDR’s idea to fruition after FDR’s death.

In stark contrast, the Bush/Cheney administration continuously exhibited little but contempt for their relations with the other nations of the world. Consequently, they not only withdrew U.S. support for many of the peace preserving functions of the United Nations; worse, they actively sought to undermine those functions by repeatedly violating international laws to which our nation was a signatory. David Rothkopf, in his book “Running the World – The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power” – describes what happened:

This time…our leaders chose a different course. Rather than investing our power and prestige into civil institutions of the global community… they chose to go it alone, to use our power and resources to advance our interests as they defined them. And rather than showing a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind”, we set aside past notions of “our justice” and consequently rejected the path that had distinguished the country and its leaders at our birth and at the previous moment of our greatest triumph (World War II). The words from Truman’s first address as president to a joint session of Congress – that the “responsibility of great states is to serve and not to dominate the world” – were drowned out by concepts like preemption and unilateralism, ideas that were more founded in raw power than they were on the philosophies of America’s Founders….

Placing ourselves above and beyond the influence of global institutions or the rule of law will only serve to seriously damage the international order that we have sought to build since the end of World War II.

World opinion the of United States – change during the Bush administration

Not surprisingly, given the Bush administration’s contempt for the rest of the world, world opinion of the United States plummeted from 2000 to 2008. Here is a graph of plummeting public opinion of the United States by some of the major European nations:



And here is a list of the change in favorable opinion of the United States, from the “Pew Global Attitudes Project”, for 20 nations where public opinion was measured during the Bush administration in 2002 or earlier, and again in 2008 (Negative numbers are in red):

Britain: -30
France: -20
Spain: -17
Germany: -57
Poland: -18
Russia: + 9
Lebanon: + 15
Turkey: -40
Jordan: -6
South Korea: + 12
India: No change
Japan: -27
Indonesia: -38
Pakistan: -4
Brazil: -9
Mexico: -21
Argentina: -28
Tanzania: +12
Nigeria: + 18
South Africa: -5


World opinion of Presidents Obama vs. Bush

Though the international reputation of the United States suffered terribly during the Bush years, a recent Pew poll of 24,000 people in 24 countries shows the potential that the United States has to regain its reputation under our new president. These polls compared Presidents Obama and Bush with respect to whether respondents indicated “A lot/Some confidence” vs. “Not too much/No confidence”. The following table indicates Obama’s favorable margin (“A lot/Some confidence” minus “Not too much/No confidence”) compared to Bush’s margin (negative numbers in red):

Mexico: Obama -22; Bush -61
Brazil: Obama +21; Bush -63
South Africa: Obama even; Bush -20
Tanzania: Obama +72; Bush +27
Nigeria: Obama +13; Bush +16
Egypt: Obama -27; Bush -75
Jordan: Obama -38; Bush -82
Turkey: Obama -42; Bush -87
Spain: Obama +50; Bush -80
France: Obama +68; Bush -74
Britain: Obama +55; Bush -65
Germany: Obama +67; Bush -71
Poland: Obama +24: Bush -9
Russia: Obama +2; Bush -47
Pakistan: Obama -36; Bush -56
India: Obama +3; Bush +22
China: Obama -4; Bush -15
South Korea: Obama +22; Bush -34
Japan: Obama +63; Bush -44
Indonesia: Obama +30; Bush -43
Australia: Obama +63; Bush -53
United States: Obama +21; Bush -23

As you can see, the differences are huge. Of the 22 countries, Bush had negative margins of confidence in 19, while Obama had a negative margin in only 6. Obama’s positive margins were over 20 in 12 countries (compared to 2 for Bush) and from 50 to 72 in 7 countries, while Bush’s largest positive margin was only 27. Bush had a negative margin of 43 or more in 14 countries, compared to none for Obama.


Reasons for Obama’s much higher favorability among the world’s people

Though President Obama has not been in office very long, he has spoken to the world’s people with much greater respect than the Bush administration ever did, and that must be a big factor in accounting for his much higher favorability ratings. For example, during his presidential campaign he spoke in Berlin about the need for the nations of the world to unite in common purpose:

Tonight, I speak to you as… a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world… There is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one… No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone…

While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history… The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity… Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

And in his inaugural address he spoke of the need for the United States to lead primarily by moral example rather than through its military:

Recall that earlier generations… understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint….

As the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

The future

No human community, large or small, can function under a law based system when the most powerful member of the community refuses to abide under the rule of law… Thus, the contempt for international law shown by the leaders of the most powerful country in the world puts in serious jeopardy the law based international system built up so carefully during the 20th Century. It tends to create what Philippe Sands calls a “Lawless World.

As long as the Bush administration or people like them retain power in the United States they will either wreak death and destruction on the rest of the world in their attempt to get what they want, or else the law abiding nations of the world will succeed in restraining them from doing so, probably relegating us to second class power status in the process.

Paul Craig Roberts, writing between the Democratic Congressional victory of 2006 and the presidential victory of 2008, summarized the situation as follows:

The fact remains that a dozen men … were able to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and launch military aggression under the guise of a preventive/pre-emptive "war against terrorism."

When the American people caught on that the "war on terror" was a cloak for wars of aggression, they put Democrats in control of Congress in order to apply a brake to the regime's warmongering. However, the Democrats have proven to be impotent to stop the neoconservative drive to wider war and, perhaps, world conflagration.

We are witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free press

Well, the triumph of those evil men was cut short by Barack Obama’s solid Presidential election victory. And as we can see from the world opinion polls discussed in this post, President Obama is off to a magnificent start with regard to regaining lost ground in our international reputation. But it is only a start. And if he doesn’t take measures to hold the war criminals of the American Empire accountable for their crimes, he will be setting a terrible example for our country and for the world, and there are likely to be serious consequences from that. A January 20th interview that Jonathan Turley did with Rachel Maddow clarified some of the pertinent issues:

TURLEY: President Obama is going to find it very hard to do is go around the world and say: "we're now again a nation of laws," if the first act he commits as President is to walk away from confirmed war crimes…

The status of George Bush is not that different from Augusto Pinochet. They've both been accused of running a torture program. Outside of this country, there is not this ambiguity about what to do about a war crime. There are four treaties that make this an international violation. So if you go abroad, and try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as "former President George Bush" -- they're going to view you as a current war criminal.

MADDOW: And they're going to view us as an outlaw regime for not arresting him on our own soil.

TURLEY: I think so, unfortunately. A lot is at stake.

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. Interesting - Canada is not included in either of those lists

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something to ponder . . .

[Time for change]

5. Yes -- I have no idea why

Maybe the Canadian government asked that their data not be published because they were afraid of insulting their neighbor to the south.

[Demeter]

2. Frankly, There Was Nowhere To Go But Up (from Bush)

Too bad any of us had to be dragged that low. Shame on those who supported that buffoon in any way, shape or form.

[Time for change]

3. That is all true

But still, I think that the magnitude of the improvement in world opinion from Bush to Obama is astounding, and that Obama deserves credit for that, for the way he has communicated with the rest of the world.

But having said that, I also believe that there are going to be bad consequences if Obama doesn't prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration. Those bad consequences may be delayed, but holding the criminals accountable must be done in order to undo the damage and progress with a viable system of international law that will serve the original purpose of furthering world peace.

[Demeter]

4. I For One Will Be Royally Pissed Off

and I'm sure I won't be the only one.

[Time for change]

6. You'll have plenty of company