Survey: Americans Reject Globo-Cop Role
by Jim Lobe
U.S. opinion leaders who expressed strong confidence in Washington's global leadership in the late 1990s have been chastened by the Iraq war, which has also spurred a sharp rise in isolationist sentiment in the general public, according to the latest in a series of surveys released here Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
The quadrennial survey, produced in collaboration with the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), also found a sharp drop in support for the United Nations and growing concern about Washington's image abroad among both elite sectors and the public, due primarily to the Iraq war.
Unlike the general public, however, elite groups identified U.S. support for Israel as the second major factor contributing to global unhappiness with Washington.
The survey, which was carried out in September and October, found little support for the Bush administration's democracy-promotion efforts abroad. While most public and elite respondents expressed sympathy for the goal, neither sector rated it a top foreign policy priority, and both were skeptical – elite groups far more so – that it could be achieved in the Middle East, in particular.
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