POLL: US Citizens counsel cooperation 2 years after 9/11

Public Counsels Cooperation Two Years After 9/11
Jim Lobe - IPS 9/8/03

WASHINGTON, Sep 9 (IPS) - Two years after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the U.S. public favours a distinctly less unilateral strategy than the one pursued by President George W. Bush, found a major new poll released Tuesday.

Some 81 percent of more than 1,200 respondents told pollsters from the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) that working ''more closely'' with other countries was a key lesson learned from Sep. 11, as opposed to Washington acting ''on its own more'' to fight terrorism.

Strong majorities also called for the administration to pursue ''more cooperative approaches'' with other nations and rely more on economic aid and diplomacy to fight terrorism and less on military means, according to the survey, conducted by California-based Knowledge Networks between Aug. 26 and Sep. 3.

The poll was released by PIPA, which has tracked U.S. public opinion on foreign policy for some 15 years, on the eve of the second anniversary of the Sep. 11 attacks and just as the Bush administration appears to have begun canvassing for support at the United Nations for greater international participation in peace-keeping and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

The administration, which had insisted on going to war in March without authorisation from the U.N. Security Council, has concluded that it must now return to the Council in order to persuade other countries to send troops and other forms of assistance.

In a nationally televised address Sunday, Bush said other countries had a ''duty'' to provide help and, at the same time, announced that his administration needed some 87 billion dollars in emergency aid over the next 13 months to sustain U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The total, which shocked even Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress worried about Washington's exploding budget deficit, was more than twice what had previously been estimated and assumes that other countries will contribute some 30 billion additional dollars to the effort.

Some commentators have said that the administration's new approach to the U.N. constitutes an implicit admission that the unilateralism with which it pursued the war is no longer tenable.

If so, the administration may be moving toward the mainstream of U.S. public opinion, which has long called for a more multilateral approach to its war on terrorism and in Iraq.

If anything, according to the poll, which asked the randomly chosen respondents more than 60 in-depth questions, the public's embrace of multilateralism appears to have deepened.

Asked which was the ''more important lesson of September 11'', 81 percent of respondents chose ''the U.S. needs to work more closely with other countries'' instead of ''the U.S. needs to act on its own more to fight terrorism'', with which 16 percent of respondents agreed.

In June 2002, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) asked the same question in its own comprehensive survey. At that time, 61 percent of respondents agreed with the first alternative and 34 percent chose the more unilateralist approach.

While the new poll found that about two-thirds of respondents approved of Bush's anti-terrorist efforts in a general sense, they were more critical of specific policies, according to Steven Kull, PIPA's director, who attributed the relatively high approval ratings to the residue of a ''rally-round-the-president effect'' that dates from Sep. 11.

Some 54 percent of respondents said the administration has been ''too assertive'' in relation to other countries, while 58 percent called on the administration to put ''more emphasis on diplomatic and economic methods'' in dealing with threats in the Islamic world, as opposed to ''military methods''.

In what Kull said was ''the most dramatic finding'', the survey found that 76 percent of the public said they feel no safer from the threat of terrorism now than they did in the immediate aftermath of Sep. 11. Only 24 percent said they felt safer.

On the other hand, asked whether the administration's efforts over the past two years at reducing the risk of a terrorist act had made them feel safer, 46 percent agreed. In response to that question, 53 percent said they felt no safer.

At the same time, a very strong majority -- nearly 80 percent -- said they believed that U.S. policy in the Islamic world is creating conditions that make it easier for terrorist groups to grow there.

Two-thirds of respondents said they thought feelings by Muslims against U.S. policy had worsened over the last two years, while 60 percent said they thought ''a majority of people in the Islamic world think U.S. policies in the Middle East make the region less stable''. Only 35 percent disagreed, insisting that most Muslims overseas think U.S. policies enhance Middle Eastern stability.

Perhaps most striking, almost three-quarters of respondents assume that the majority of overseas Muslims ''share many of al-Qaeda's feelings toward the U.S.'', even if most of those who have a similar perspective do not support their methods.

Two-thirds of respondents also said they believe that most people in the Middle East want Washington ''to play a less prominent and influential role'' in the region and reduce its military presence there.

A similar majority agreed that the U.S. military presence in the region increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks against the country, and that it indeed should be reduced over the next decade. By contrast, 32 percent and 31 percent, respectively, said the U.S. military presence reduces the chances of a terrorist attack and that its military profile there should be increased.

In a rebuke to the administration's plans to reform the Middle East, unilaterally if necessary, some 58 percent of respondents agreed that, ''The U.S. is playing the role of world policeman in the Middle East more than it should''. Thirty-nine percent disagreed.

A majority of the public rejects the view that tensions between the West and the Islamic world are inevitable, although the proportion of individuals who take that view has increased over the past two years.

While a minority of 36 percent agreed with the assertion, ''Because Islamic religious and social traditions are intolerant and fundamentally incompatible with Western culture, violent conflict is bound to keep happening'', that marked an increase from 26 percent when PIPA asked the same question in November 2001.

Similarly, 60 percent of respondents insisted that Muslims generally ''have needs and wants like those of people everywhere, so it is possible for us to find common ground'', while 68 percent subscribed to that view two months after the Sep. 11 attacks.

But close to 80 percent of respondents said Washington should make greater efforts to improve relations with people in the Islamic world.

In a separate poll released Tuesday, the Gallup organisation said the public's confidence in the government's ability to handle international problems has fallen to levels close to what they were just before Sep. 11.

Before the attacks, 14 percent of respondents expressed a great deal of confidence in the government's capability, a total that rose to 36 percent in October 2001. But today, the figure has fallen back to 18 percent, Gallup said.