Approval of U.S. among Arabs Lower under Obama Than under Bush

Obama's plan was simple. After becoming President of the United States, he would praise Islam, quote the Qur'an, bow to Muslim leaders, give speeches in the Middle East, and show us all that terrorism can be defeated with soothing words.

Reality is officially setting in. By putting himself forward as the champion of American-Islamic relations, Obama led Muslims to believe that he would carry out their interests--ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pulling U.S. forces entirely out of the Muslim world, turning a blind-eye towards terrorist networks, and throwing Israel under the bus.

No one can say that Obama hasn't tried to please Muslims. But when a religion demands total submission, adherents often do as well. Now that Muslims are realizing that Obama isn't going to do enough for their cause, his popularity is plummeting.

WASHINGTON — Two years after US President Barack Obama called in a groundbreaking speech from Cairo for a "new beginning" in relations with the Muslim world, his popularity among Arabs has nosedived, a poll released Wednesday shows.

An overwhelming majority of more than 4,000 people surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, told the Arab American Institute that they felt that Obama had not met the expectations he laid out in the June 2009 Cairo speech, the poll found.

Obama called in his Cairo speech for an end to the cycle of "suspicion and discord" between the United States and Muslim world, and outlined a new US blueprint for the Middle East, which included a Palestinian state and efforts to defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.

But the poll found that Arabs see the Obama administration's handling of key Middle East policy issues as having made no contribution to improving relations between them and the United States.

In fact, the two issues on which the US administration has invested "considerable energy -- the Palestinian issue and engagement with the Muslim world -- receive the lowest approval ratings," the survey found.

Less than nine percent of the people polled said the Obama administration has handled the two key issues well.

The Arab world's image of the US as a whole has also soured to become even less favorable than during the last year of the administration of president George W. Bush, under whom the United States led an international coalition that invaded Iraq, the survey found.

The killing by US Navy SEALs of Osama bin Laden did little to improve Arabs' views of the United States. Majorities in all six countries said they viewed the United States less favorably following the killing of the Al-Qaeda head in Pakistan. (Read more.)