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But we don't want to be unilateralists,
Mr Bush
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - If the unilateralist hawks in the
administration of President George W Bush were hoping
that the easier than expected military victory in Iraq
would bring the US public closer to their views, they
are likely to be very disappointed by the latest
polling. It shows that much of the public appears to be
more in tune with the views of "Old Europe" - a moniker
applied by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to
describe European countries that opposed Washington's
rush to attack Iraq - than with those of the
neo-conservatives around Rumsfeld.
While three
in four US adults say they now believe the war was
right, according to the most comprehensive poll to date,
strong majorities reject either a more unilateralist or
military-oriented role for the United States in the
future and continue to see the United Nations as the
best mechanism for dealing with international
crises.
Moreover, almost two-thirds of a random
survey of adults agreed with the assertion, "The US
plays the role of world policeman more than it should,"
and only 12 percent agreed with the notion that "the US
should continue to be the pre-eminent world leader in
solving international problems".
The survey,
carried out from April 18-22 with 865 randomly chosen
respondents by the Program on International Policy
Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, largely
echoes the findings of other recent but far less
comprehensive polls by the Gallup organization, Newsweek
and other media companies.
"The public's
enthusiasm for the Iraq war appears to be highly
compartmentalized," said Steven Kull, PIPA's longtime
director. "There is no evidence of a spillover into
other areas. Despite the US victory in Iraq," he said,
"public opinion appears to have remained unchanged with
regard to the use of military force, the UN, and the
role of the US in the world," Kull told a news
conference here.
Most striking appears to be the
degree to which the public rejects the kind of
international role that neo-conservative hawks in the
Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office have
proposed for the United States, in which it is not
constrained by international mechanisms such as the UN
Security Council or alliances from taking unilateral
action when it deems necessary.
When asked to
choose among three options to describe the role
Washington should play in the world, only 12 percent
favored the pre-eminent world leader position; 76
percent said "The US should do its share in efforts to
solve international problems with other countries";
while 11 percent said Washington should "withdraw from
most efforts to solve international problems".
The percentage favoring the "pre-eminent" role
actually fell from 17 percent since a similar question
was asked in a poll taken in June 2002.
Even more
unexpected was the response to the question of whether
the Bush administration should have tried to get
Security Council authorization for taking military
action against Iraq, a notion with which administration
hawks strongly disagreed. Eighty-eight percent of
respondents chose the UN route.
"You talk to
people in Washington and you wouldn't expect this at
all," noted I M Destler, a foreign-policy specialist at
the University of Maryland. "It's such a high
percentage, especially when you consider how the UN
process has been exposed to so many attacks by the
administration and in the media," he told reporters.
Similarly, while 35 percent of respondents said
Washington should feel more free to use force without UN
authorization in the future, almost two-thirds said the
United States should not take away that
lesson.
The notion that the Iraq attack was
regarded as an exceptional case was bolstered when the
survey asked what Washington should do when dealing with
other potential US targets that allegedly harbor weapons
of mass destruction, the pretext on which the
administration justified its invasion.
Solid
majorities of respondents - from 57 percent to 67
percent - said the UN, rather than Washington, should
take the lead in dealing with perceived threats from
Syria, Iran and North Korea.
"I think what the
public is really saying is that 'we don't want to do it
alone'," Destler said.
Asked whether the United
States "has the right or even the responsibility to
overthrow dictatorships", the rationale favored by the
administration since no weapons of mass destruction have
been found to date in Iraq, 57 percent disagreed, while
38 percent agreed.
The public appears to believe
that the war in Iraq will deter Iran and Syria from
acquiring weapons of mass destruction. But a large
majority - 71 percent - believe Washington should deal
with Damascus primarily by "diplomacy and dialogue"
rather than "pressuring it with implied threats of
military force".
At the same time, however, two
out of three respondents rejected the idea of pressuring
Middle Eastern governments such as Saudi Arabia and
Egypt to become more democratic when it was suggested
that such an effort might make them less cooperative in
fighting terrorism. Some neo-conservatives justified the
war in Iraq in part by arguing that it would lead to
pressure on other Arab countries to democratize.
Majorities of the public also disagree with the
hawks who oppose a role for the UN in postwar Iraq apart
from humanitarian relief.
The public is evenly
split on whether Washington or the UN should temporarily
govern Iraq and build a new government. A small majority
(54 percent) prefer a UN police force to US military
forces as the instrument responsible for maintaining
civil order, while 57 percent believe that the UN,
rather than the United States, should direct
humanitarian relief and economic reconstruction.
Given three options for the role of the US
military, 54 percent said it should remain in Iraq and
provide security, but that the UN should lead relief and
reconstruction. Only 29 percent said the military should
be in charge of all functions, and 14 percent said the
military should "withdraw completely from Iraq shortly
after the war is over".
Respondents were also
asked which of two options more closely reflected their
view of overall US responsibility. One-quarter agreed
with the option that "we shouldn't spend money on
rebuilding Iraq when we have so many problems here at
home". Almost three-quarters, on the other hand, agreed
that "it would be unwise and immoral for the US to
overthrow the government of Iraq and then just leave".
And 86 percent said that Washington has "the
responsibility to remain in Iraq as long as necessary
until there is a stable government", with the median
estimate of the most likely length of time being two
years.
(The PIPA survey results are available in
PDF format at http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/PostWarIraq/press_apr29.pdf.)
(Inter Press Service)
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