Survey: Muslim Countries Have Low Regard For U.N.

Fewer Americans approve of the United Nations than at any time in the past 14 years, while large majorities in some Muslim countries surveyed also hold a negative view of the organization, according to a survey released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The poll, conducted nearly a year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, explored public opinion on terrorism and international diplomacy in nine countries — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan and Morocco, according to a report in the UN Wire.

In the United States, just 55 percent of people held a favorable view of the United Nations, the lowest since polling began in 1990. The organization enjoyed considerably more support across Europe and Russia, with a 71 percent favorability rating in Germany and 64 percent in the United Kingdom.

"The perception of the United Nations is that its influence is falling ... and the view of the U.N. is not very good in the U.S.," said Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who helped oversee the report.

Support for the United Nations was even lower, however, in the four Muslim majority countries surveyed. In Pakistan, 35 percent of people had a favorable opinion of the organization, and in Jordan that number was just 21 percent. In Turkey, where terrorists have struck as recently as November, the number was higher, 51 percent.

"In the United States ... we hear all the time about how the United Nations doesn't do anything for us," said Albright. "If you were to see this from the view of Muslim countries, the U.N. hasn't exactly done what they wanted, either."

She also said the U.S. decision to go to war last year without a U.N. mandate could help explain the organization's diminished support abroad. "When the United States doesn't support the U.N., then it just helps to undercut its reputation," Albright added.

Despite the low opinion of the United Nations in some countries, greater proportions of people in every nation surveyed said the United Nations would do a better job helping Iraqis to form a stable government than the United States and its allies. U.S. respondents wanted the United Nations to take the lead by a 46 percent to 42 percent margin, while more than 80 percent of the populations of the United Kingdom, Germany and France favored the United Nations.

In some Muslim countries, however, support for a U.N. role was far less enthusiastic. In Jordan and Morocco, pluralities said that neither the United States nor the United Nations could do best in helping Iraqis form a stable government. Respondents in those countries also questioned whether the removal of Saddam Hussein would improve life for Iraqis.

"Western publics at least believe ... the Iraqi people are going to be better off" in the long run after Hussein's ouster, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. By contrast, publics in the four Muslim countries surveyed said Iraqis would be worse off, although there has been a notable shift in Morocco, he said. Last year, 24 percent of Moroccans said Iraqis would be better off with Hussein out of power; 37 percent expressed that opinion in this year's survey.

The survey also found that the gap between Europe and the United States over using force, opened last year during the buildup to the war in Iraq, has not narrowed. Solid majorities in the United Kingdom (64 percent), France (63 percent) and Germany (80 percent) said their country should obtain U.N. approval before going to war, while in the United States only 41 percent said U.N. approval was necessary. In the Muslim countries surveyed, opinion was more divided, with Turkey split at 45 to 44 percent and Pakistan with 38 to 34 percent in favor of getting a U.N. mandate.

While the study found that the United Nations elicits mixed reactions around the world, it recorded sharp disapproval for the United States and how it has conducted the war against terrorism. "Mistrust of America in Europe is ever higher and Muslim anger persists, even though it has abated somewhat" since this time last year, said Kohut.

Majorities in every country but the United States and the United Kingdom were skeptical of U.S. motives in the war against terror, saying it was not a sincere effort to reduce terrorist threats. Meanwhile, at least half of respondents in every country but the United States said the war in Iraq hurt, rather than helped, the war on terrorism. In Morocco, 67 percent of people expressed this opinion, as did solid majorities in Germany, Pakistan, Turkey and France.

"Power derives from the ability to create a consensus," said Patrick Cronin, a director of studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which helped launch the study. "The United States has not done a good job."

Editor's note: