Egyptian Public to Greet President Obama with Suspicion

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds Egyptians continue to view US foreign policy quite negatively and see President Obama as closely aligned with it. At the same time, Obama has much better ratings than Bush had, and there are signs of thawing feelings toward the US. Excerpts from the Opinion Poll are presented here.
Asked how much confidence they have in Obama to do the right thing in international affairs, 39 percent say they have some or a lot of confidence–up sharply from the 8 percent who viewed George W. Bush positively in January 2008. Views of the United States government have also improved with favorable views rising to 46 percent from 27 percent in an August 2008 WorldPublicOpinion.org poll.
There has been little change in the views of US foreign policy. Sixty-seven percent say that the US plays a negative role in the world.

Large majorities continue to believe the US has goals to weaken and divide the Islamic world (76%) and control Middle East oil (80%). Eight in 10 say the US is seeking to impose American culture on Muslim countries (80%). Six in ten say it is not a goal of the US to create a Palestinian state. These numbers are virtually unchanged from 2008.
When asked about Obama’s goals, Egyptians’ views are almost exactly the same as their views of US goals. Sixty percent say they have little or no confidence that Obama will do the right thing in international affairs.
“Egyptians appear to be saying to Obama, ‘Show me you are really different,’” comments Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Egyptians view American support for democracy with a jaundiced eye. Only 6 percent think the US favors democracy in Muslim countries irrespective of a government’s position toward the US, while 53 percent say the US only favors democracy if the government is cooperative with the US. Four in ten think the US opposes democracy in Muslim countries.
Obama has not strengthened the image of the US as committed to democracy in Muslim countries; indeed, the number saying that the US opposes democracy in Muslim countries is up 14 points, and the number saying that the US unequivocally supports democracy is down 10 points from August 2008.
A high-profile controversy in Egypt and the US is whether the Muslim Brotherhood should be allowed to participate in elections. Many critics have accused it of not being genuinely committed to democracy, but seeking to impose a fundamentalist Islamic state. Among the Egyptian public, views of the Muslim Brotherhood are positive. Sixty-four percent express positive views, 19 percent say they have mixed views and just 16 percent express negative views.
The Egyptian public shows sympathy for some Islamist ideas about democracy. Six in ten think the Egyptian government should be based on a form of democracy unique for Islam, as compared to 39 percent who say it should be based on universal principles of democracy.
The poll was conducted through face-to-face interviews from April 25-May 12 with 600 urban Egyptians. The margin of error is 4.1 percent.
The poll results show that local views on issues like democracy, role of Muslim Brotherhood and U.S. foreign policy objectives is somewhat different from what is projected in the mainstream Western media. Popular perception in the West is that only a few hard-line Islamist groups resist American involvement and seek to impose an indigenized form of democracy. Results of this opinion poll clearly suggest that America’s alleged benevolent leadership is interpreted as hegemony by the majority of the Egyptians.