Do Arabs like Obama?

Five years ago, President Obama promised in a landmark speech in Cairo to usher in a new chapter in America’s relationship with the Muslim world. On Tuesday, June 3, the Middle East Institute and the Arab American Institute co-hosted a discussion on how Arab attitudes have evolved in the five years following the speech. The panel included James Zogby, Marwan Muasher, Barbara Slavin, and Paul Salem, who moderated. The consensus:  while expectations for the Obama presidency did not live up to reality, his policy of non-intervention remains popular in the region.

The discussion was based on the results of a May 2014 Zogby poll, which was conducted across seven countries in the Arab world. The survey examined a host of issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, US policy on Syria, and the Arab world’s view of Iran. Unsurprisingly, Palestine was seen as the key obstacle to stability in the Middle East, followed by a perception of American over-interference in the region. The US approval rating did not break 50% in any of the countries surveyed, but Zogby noted a considerable increase from 2011. All three panelists attributed the uptick in American popularity to Obama’s retreat from the military interventionism of his predecessor.

There was one notable exception in the trend: Saudi attitudes towards the US have fallen sharply since 2011, largely because of America’s perceived ambivalence towards the conflict in Syria. Likewise, support for Iran has also fallen, due its support of the Assad regime.

Obama’s favorability ratings were higher that the US’s favorability ratings.  While the President’s lighter footprint in the world has softened Arab attitudes towards the US, America’s previous exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been forgotten.

In every country polled, strong majorities said that maintaining good relations with the US is important. This suggests that there is no inherent ideological opposition to America. The majority of the Arab world’s qualms are with American policy.

Outside of the Gulf countries polled (Saudi Arabia and the UAE), Iran was not seen as a major destabilizing factor in the region. In fact, the President’s attempt to find a negotiated solution to the Iran nuclear impasse found a great deal of support outside the Gulf. According to Slavin, the insignificance of the Iranian nuclear issue in Arab public opinion is unsurprising, as Iran was never seen as a direct threat in much of the Arab world. In fact, she suggested that some derive a perverse satisfaction from the idea that a Middle Eastern country other than Israel might acquire nuclear weapons.

Muasher noted that the results of the survey highlighted an interesting paradox in Arab public opinion: while the Arab-Israeli conflict is cited as the primary challenge to US-Arab relations, it is followed closely by the perception that the US is overly meddlesome in the region. It was thus unclear how the respondents expected the conflict to be resolved, as an American-led resolution would necessitate American intervention. He also noted that support for US foreign policy was at its highest when it refrains from interfering in the region.

While an earlier poll found that in most Arab countrie, 65% or more opposed President Assad, this survey found little support for US intervention in the conflict, vindicating Obama’s policy of non-interference. Zobgy further suggested that support for Assad could in fact rise if the US chose to pursue a military option in Syria.

While American approval ratings are on the upswing, the poll found that both Iran and Turkey have lost the support they enjoyed earlier in the decade. Iran’s decline began with in 2006 and accelerated with the failed Green Revolution of 2009; however, all three panelists attributed the majority of the decline to Iran’s support of Assad. Turkey, which has dedicated the better part of the last twelve years to mending ties with its Arab neighbors, has seen its popularity fall in the wake of the Arab Spring. It was unclear why this started in 2011, as Erdogan’s heavy-handedness did not begin until 2012.

One unexpected finding was that only 21% of those polled in Lebanon thought the Syrian conflict was a pressing issue. Slavin suggested that this was due to the country’s diverse population, with close to two-thirds identifying as either Shiite or Christian and therefore more likely to sympathize with the regime and discount the conflict’s significance. Lebanon’s support for Iran also far outpaced the other countries in the survey, due to Iran’s generosity towards Lebanon following that country’s 2006 war with Israel.

Of all the countries polled, Palestinians were surprisingly the most likely to say that the US acted evenhandedly towards both Palestinians and Israelis (30%). According to Muasher, this is possibly because Palestinians are simply exhausted by the conflict and are willing to give the Americans the benefit of the doubt. Zogby added that Obama has gone further than other American presidents in emphasizing the importance of recognizing Palestinian rights.

Nonetheless, the speakers noted that if America remains unable or unwilling to negotiate a two-state solution, then it should step aside and allow someone else to take the lead—perhaps the EU, or the UN. America’s window of opportunity in this regard is closing fast. At some point it will taken out of the game, whether it chooses or not.

Ultimately, five years after his Cairo speech the sentiment is that Obama has not lived up to expectations. Nonetheless, public opinion has rebounded somewhat from its nadir in 2011.  This is primarily due to America’s policy of non-interference in the Middle East, and in spite of its failure to mediate a solution to Arab-Israeli crisis.

“We are living in the house that George [W. Bush] built,” Zogby said.  Had America not exhausted its resources and goodwill in Iraq, it might have been able to pursue other issues, including the peace process, more successfully.