Peter Beinart: Is the World Losing Faith in Obama?

[flpoljunkie]

Is the World Losing Faith in Obama?
The president's critics fret about America's image abroad, but the numbers tell a different story.
PETER BEINART

MAY 30 2014

Tennis fans at the Australian Open in Melbourne, in January 2009 (Mick Tsikas/Reuters)

Dick Cheney is worried about America’s image in the world. “I think the perception around the world is increasingly negative,” the former vice president declared on Wednesday to Sean Hannity, one of the few talk-show hosts who could hear such a claim without being struck dumb by its irony. It’s become a frequent Republican refrain. President Obama’s foreign policy, opines Karl Rove in a new Wall Street Journal column, has produced “strained relations with allies and declining confidence in American leadership.” Marco Rubio recently added that, “In Asia, our allies are increasingly unsure about our ability to counter both North Korea and Chinese expansionism.”

In a way, it’s heartening that Cheney and Rove feel the need to make non-Americans the ventriloquist dummies for their anti-Obama hostility. It suggests awareness that when it comes to foreign policy, they need spokespeople more credible than themselves. And it suggests a recognition, not always obvious during the George W. Bush years, that Americans should actually care what the rest of the world thinks.

Cheney and Rove are making non-Americans the ventriloquist dummies for their anti-Obama hostility. But when Cheney says world opinion is “increasingly negative” and Rove detects “declining confidence” in the United States, it’s hard not to ask the obvious question: compared to when? In fact, while faith in the United States, and in Obama personally, has declined modestly since 2009, it is still dramatically higher than when Cheney and Rove roamed the West Wing.

For more than a decade, the Pew Research Center has been asking people around the world about their opinion of the United States. The upshot: In every region of the globe except the Middle East (where the United States was wildly unpopular under George W. Bush and remains so), America’s favorability is way up since Obama took office. In Spain, approval of the United States is 29 percentage points higher than when Bush left office. In Italy, it’s up 23 points. In Germany and France, it’s 22. With the exception of China, where the numbers have remained flat, the trend is the same in Asia. The U.S. is 19 points more popular in Japan, 24 points more popular in Indonesia, and 28 points more popular in Malaysia. Likewise among the biggest powers in Latin America and Africa: Approval of the United States has risen 19 points in Argentina and 12 points in South Africa. (For some reason, there’s no Bush-era data on this question for Brazil or Nigeria).

more…

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/is-the-world-really-losing-faith-in-barack-obama/371884/

[Warpy]

1. He's been a little less belligerent

but the NSA spying has greatly tarnished his halo.

[frazzled]

3. The world doesn't agree with you

as the Pew poll's numbers suggest. They think he's a helluva lot better than the previous regime.

[Bill USA]

7. Cheney has a halo? I think, you might be hallucinating - but he might be less belligerent

[Warpy]

8. I think you need to read the OP

otherwise you risk looking awfully silly.

[Bill USA]

9. I read Beinart's article in the Atlantic - U.S Approval rating UP worldwide since Obama in the WH!

But when Cheney says world opinion is “increasingly negative” and Rove detects “declining confidence” in the United States, it’s hard not to ask the obvious question: compared to when? In fact, while faith in the United States, and in Obama personally, has declined modestly since 2009,[font size="3"] it is still dramatically higher than when Cheney and Rove roamed the West Wing[/font].

For more than a decade, the Pew Research Center has been asking people around the world about their opinion of the United States. The upshot: [font size="3"]In every region of the globe except the Middle East (where the United States was wildly unpopular under George W. Bush and remains so), America’s favorability is way up since Obama took office. In Spain, approval of the United States is 29 percentage points higher than when Bush left office. In Italy, it’s up 23 points. In Germany and France, it’s 22. With the exception of China, where the numbers have remained flat, the trend is the same in Asia. The U.S. is 19 points more popular in Japan, 24 points more popular in Indonesia, and 28 points more popular in Malaysia. Likewise among the biggest powers in Latin America and Africa: Approval of the United States has risen 19 points in Argentina and 12 points in South Africa[/font]. (For some reason, there’s no Bush-era data on this question for Brazil or Nigeria).

[frazzled]

2. Yes, the world is still thrilled

that Bush is not president (and that Obama is).

[flpoljunkie]

4. The case is especially made of the contrast with Bush in the last four paragraphs

Or consider the recent crisis between the West and Russia, in which the United States successfully pushed Germany and Britain to back sanctions aimed at preventing Putin from destabilizing Ukraine, even though those sanctions interfere with Germany and Britain’s lucrative ties to Moscow. There is evidence that those sanctions helped convince Putin to back off.

Could George W. Bush have pushed the Europeans as far? I doubt it. Remember that in 2002, Bush was so unpopular in Germany that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made his opposition to the Iraq War the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. When Schroeder won, Bush declined to offer him the customary congratulatory phone call. Schroeder’s justice minister compared Bush to Hitler. And to the delight of most Europeans, Germany allied with France to thwart America’s effort to get United Nations support for an invasion of Iraq.

In that environment, would Bush really have managed to convince Berlin to slap sanctions on Russia that cut against Germany’s short-term economic self-interest, as Obama has? I doubt it, because Germans wouldn’t have seen much of a difference between what Putin was doing and what Bush was.

When Bush was president, Cheney and Rove were defiantly uninterested in what other nations thought about American foreign policy. Now they’re convinced that those other nations yearn for the pre-Obama days. Back then, they were merely ideologically blinkered. Now they are verifiably, empirically wrong.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/is-the-world-really-losing-faith-in-barack-obama/371884/

[trueblue2007]

5. no

[TheDonkey]

6. Cheney has no credibility, but keep talking,

I like how he continues to show up on TV and remind us how bad things were when he had influence.

[Bill USA]

10. Went to PEW Research site, lookd at US favorability for 2013 and 2008 - on avg it's UP 40% (n=19)

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the U.S.? - 2013


Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the U.S.? - 2008

[germguy]

12. Don't trust any statistic you haven't manipulated on your own.

[germguy]

11. that just happened long time ago... a ruthless conclusion

Last edited Mon Jun 9, 2014, 02:20 AM - Edit history (1)

hi there,

here is a voice from germany. i ran into your forum by accident but nevertheless i was interested what guys would discuss in such a forum.
i'm a bit concerned about the placid way and issues discussed herein but finally i found this post which seemed interesting to me.

well i can only tell from a subjective point of view for me and the persons i'm with. i remember my job time in usa where i was asked how i think about usa. i told the poor guy in these words "I have nothing against the people but i hate the politics."

you see i'm used to lay it on the line and the way the guy reacted was not a testimony of a democracy. He reacted with fear. Years later the totalitarian regime the usa has merged into gives a realistic motivation for his fear. Actually i answered spontanously and now, more than 10 years later i start to realize whats behind that words.

Here in germany or better to say my circles (including people of all generations) the usa is the acme for an imperialism regime. i mean, look on the landcard about the military control points held by the us. usa in the past wanted to keep the face of a 'good guy' and 'world police' but i guess nobody believs that anymore. it is not just cheap propaganda to think like "we're the good guys and the others are the bad guys'. even it's a fatal philosophic perception which is expressed by the "elite" in an exceeding expression of a suffer in the todays people heads. a german cabaret artist diagnosis the usa to be in the endstadium of capitalism. And in the end game of a monetary system the greed is indignant enough to reveal the true nature of the system.

here we call it "revolving door politics", what we mean is the deep interellation between politics and businesses which erodes what is left from democracy turning authority of the people into a dictatorship driven under the spell of capital. People are afraid of that in germany. Governments will be erased. That's the trend i hope this is not in question. Governments are more and more controlled by cooperations and private interests where the primary driving factor is money, expenential economic growth etc. which stands congruent against social standards.

That all has gone far in progress. More in the us than in europe so far. The end game of the debt-based monetary system will be the collapse of social systems which will lead to riots. Aside the world crisis because of the us speculations is just a snippet of what will come. Years ago it was a so called conspiracy theory that when governments talk about terroism prevention it means the real terrorist are you - the citicizen. And i guess when you have no food and no medical care everyone will become a terrorist for the rich guys who allready are preparing their private armys. If you still call it a conspiracy theory after looking at the house sellarys, the groving poornes, the situation in various countries, which i gues is not much different in europe compared to the us and at last at the nsa scandal i really can't help you.

To come to an conclusion and say it in the words of a german cabaretist: We should be aware of a facile hatrett against the usa. But: My hattred isn't facile at all.

I gave you just a short overview about the backgrounds and reasons why the US politics have gambled away trust of the people. However, this hattret has nothing todo with the people. Many people start to realize wars are driven by governments for power and capital. I want to point that out: The most terrific aggression and destruction in the world goes out from governments where only a fraction of the citizens support those wars. And the most militant government in the world is the usa. and it's acutally not a government because armory is a private industry in usa and it has even less to do with government than in germany. REmember ?Eisenhauers? words?

When Obama says, US wants to encaurage US-leader ship in the world but not only with weapons i take that as an threat. And history has proven that (not only) USA but the complete western world defines "Bringing peace and democracy" primarly in the fact that resource supply for a basically wrong economic system must be assured. Which effectively means stealing it from other countries to save peace in democracy primarly in the own country. A german philosopher (Sloterdijk) called that cynism. To understand that definition of cynism take the embittered cynical joke and ask for the reason for that sullenness. That is Sloterdijks definition of cynism, easy spoken.

And for the last: I do not see US politics as the bad guys. The german government is only close behind the usa government. Nevertheless the bad challenges the world is suffering is most advanced to be found in the us system.

As far as US people don't get this the only way to get "friends" in the world is the deviant military power found in usa. Your politics prove enough cynism to call this "friends" then.

And for me, when there is so much mendacity in the system a guy like obama who weekly signs kill lists gets the peace nobel price fear of being punished by a rampage running government for saying that truth is sadly no conspiracy theory. You can not denial this when looking at practices done in guantanamo etc. ("x people killed by 9/11, x*100000 people killed by wars justified by 9/11.)

One last hard word: Your ex president bush was celebrated in some western circles as a reborn christ. Well, anyone how knows a bit of the christian background should know, when listening the announcement for worldwide terror in the name of terror-prevention is far beound christianity and a proof of loose of reality greedy politics suffer from nowadays.

I'll stop here because i could imagine that your admins won't publish this post and i have written enough for (maybe) nothing.

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Hi germguy.

Welcome to DU. Always interesting to hear views from the other side of the pond.

[germguy]

14. hi

thanx for the welcome *g*