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Why has US popularity declined in so many countries?
The US is in real difficulty in being understood at a political level. US President Roosevelt once said " Speak quietly and carry a big stick". The US administration now appears to speak loudly and carry a big stick...However for the US all is not that doom and gloom. There is a quieter pervasive American influence all over the globe.
The US administration has recently found that US Policy is being misconstrued in many countries and its rate of popularity has considerably declined, reportedly as many as in 34 countries. While the popularity of President Bush has risen in the US, his image and policy got a battering outside the US. This is despite the fact in the current economic and political environment in various parts of the world the continued engagement of the United States is extremely important. However the present form of interaction presents a huge problem for the US. It is reported that one Public Relations expert has been appointed at the State Department to improve its image across the globe.
The question is why has it happened? There appear to be several reasons for the decline.
As the only remaining superpower in the world, the US has the special difficulty in getting itself heard across the globe. The reasons could be:- the fact that the US is a Western power and does not understand Islamic World;
-the historical legacy of the past where the US played a high interventionist role in Asia, Africa and Latin America;
-the fact that the US has been seen as the greatest protector of Israel;
-the growing opinion that multilateral organisations such as the UN Security Council, and the international financial institutions, IMF and the World Bank primarily reflect US rather than global interests;
-the fact that the US is perceived to have maintained a double standard policy on many global issues in contrast with those of the European Union.
As a result of these perceptions American foreign policy is often viewed by many developing countries as a drive for regional and global hegemony.
The US, being a Western power, is a suspect in many Islamic countries (56 in number in the world). There are certain areas which are of constant concern, notably in the Middle East. American policy has come under greater scrutiny and the visible double standard policy towards Israel and Iraq is too open for any one to see. In essence Israel is allowed to possess atomic, biological and chemical weapons while in the case of Iraq suspected of possession of chemical and biological weapons, the US policy is "regime change". This is being interpreted by many in Asia as US attempt to control over oil in the Middle East and to curb power of the OPEC to fix output and price of oil in global market.
In Asia no one can forget the Vietnam War (1954-1975) the US in the 60s involved itself where millions of people of Vietnam and 58,000 US military personnel were killed. At present it is reported that the US has military presence in over 100 countries across the world. In Asia the US ground and air forces are stationed in Central Asia, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Okinwa (Japan) and South Korea. The US has a base in Diego Garcia ( Indian Ocean) where B52 bombers, now capable of dropping satellite and laser-guided "smart" bombs are located. The B52 have been used in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime in 2001.
In South Asia the engagement of the US appears not to be deep or serious, particularly over the disputed Kashmir. The policy in the region appears to lurch from one crisis to another guided by narrow US interests. In Afghanistan the commitment of the US before the emergence of the Taliban regime was temporary and once the Soviet troops left in 1989, the US lost its interest in the country.
During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), the US supported the Saddam Husein regime and about 150 US companies with the approval of the US administration provided ingredients of biological and chemical weapons to Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, a Special Envoy of the US visited Baghdad in 1983 and reportedly met President Saddam Husein and the same person, now as Defence Secretary, appears to be one of the influential persons to pursue a hard line policy towards removal of President Saddam Husein. It may be recalled that the chemical weapons attacks in Halabja on Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Husein regime were ignored by the US in 1988.
In South Korea the presence of 37,000 US soldiers is viewed as a problem and not part of the solution of the divided Korean peninsula. The Presidential candidate won the election in South Korea with an anti-US campaign. South Koreans, who have benefited from US assistance, have now turned against the US hard line policy towards North Korea.
In Latin America, the covert and overt intervention in Panama, Nicaragua and Chile are well known. Panama's strongman Manuel Noriega who acted as an agent of CIA for years together has been serving life imprisonment in the US on conviction of drug related crimes when he, as the President of Panama, defied US. Chile's dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-90) pursued open door economic policies in return of alleged US support.
The policy of the IMF and World Bank is allegedly manipulated by the largest shareholder US towards a recalcitrant country. Unless the US gives a nod, it is difficult to obtain loans from the financial institutions. The institutions are viewed as a vehicle to establish US hegemony in various parts of the world.
There is also an impression that the US has become one of the champions of imposition of economic sanctions on countries which do not "kowtow" to it. President Clinton himself went on record in 1998 as saying that the US policy had become "sanctions-happy": "We are in danger of looking like we want to sanction everybody who disagrees with us and not help anybody who agrees with us". The US recently proposed economic sanctions against North Korea for its resumption of its nuclear programme.
The US and the European Union disagreed on the issue of ratification of Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998.. President Bush was isolated in his call for the removal of Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian Authority as a pre-condition to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even the most consistently supportive US ally, Britain's Tony Blair declined to endorse the Bush position. Germany's Chancellor Schroeder won the election last September campaigning against US policy of war against Iraq. The US could not for the first time become a member of the UN Commission of Human Rights because many European countries did not vote for the US.
There is also an impression that the US may be unable to deliver on its promises unless it affects its interests. Furthermore the US is seen lacking the capacity and interest in understanding in sufficient detail to be able to anticipate problems and new crises. The perception in the Middle East is that not only does the US not understand the region but it is unwilling to make the effort to recast its policy. In part this appears to be the result of the dominance of the view that the region, and indeed the whole world, is divided into friendly "tyrants" and liberal democratic countries. Veteran political scientist Stanley Hoffmann recently wrote that the US policy of "regime change" in Iraq, if pursued across the board, would topple friendly " tyrants" on whom the same US policy-makers rely.
All these paragraphs demonstrate that the US is in real difficulty in being understood at a political level. US President Roosevelt once said " Speak quietly and carry a big stick". The US administration now appears to speak loudly and carry a big stick. Former British Foreign Secretary (Minister) during the Gulf War Douglas Hurd wrote on 2nd January in London's Financial Times that the overthrow of an Arab regime, however odious, by an overwhelmingly Anglo-American military would seem to the Arab world different in principle from the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. No friendly countries, Arab or other, would this time pick up the bill for the military expenses, as they willingly did in 1991.
However for the US all is not that doom and gloom. There is a quieter pervasive American influence all over the globe. Coca-Cola and McDonald's culture have reached every corner of the globe. TV shows have carried US values and aspirations into billions of homes in a culture-reach that is historically unprecedented. Despite unpopularity of its foreign policy, American movies, singers, fast food and life style are immensely popular in most of the countries in the world. This is an interesting dichotomy of image of a country that is one of the most liberal and democratic countries in the world. Napoleon while in exile said: " There are two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind".
Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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