Poll Reinforces U.S.-International Divide on Iraq
But Overseas, Attitudes About Invading Iraq Continue to Be Overwhelmingly Negative
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 8:35 AM
Poised at the brink of war, the difference between American and European public attitudes on Iraq are as deep and wide as the Atlantic Ocean, with Americans rallying strongly behind President Bush while most Europeans still remain sharply critical of Bush and his foreign policy, according to surveys released on Tuesday.
Overwhelming majorities of Americans have accepted their president's call for war with Iraq as the only practical way to remove Saddam Hussein and end the threat posed by his weapons of mass destruction, according to polls conducted Monday night by major news organizations including The Washington Post and ABC News.
Support for going to war with Iraq surged to 71 percent following Bush's nationally televised speech, up from 59 percent barely a week ago, according to The Post-ABC News poll. Nearly two in three – 64 percent – approve of the way Bush is handling the confrontation with Iraq, a nine-percentage point increase in the past eight days.
Bush's overall job approval rating rose five points to 64 percent in just two days, according to surveys conducted by CBS News shortly before and immediately after Bush spoke.
At the same time, attitudes in Europe continue to be broadly negative toward Bush and his policies toward Iraq, even in nations that Bush includes among his "coalition of the willing." In France and Germany, countries that oppose the war but are counted on by the United States to help rebuild Iraq, more than two in three reject a U.S.-led attack, according to surveys conducted last week by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
"Looming war with Iraq has taken a further toll on the image of America--not only in countries highly critical of our Iraq policy such as France and Germany, but also in coalition countries such as Britain, Poland, Italy and Spain," wrote Andrew Kohut, the center's director.
Even in Great Britain, 39 percent of citizens favor going to war, down from 47 percent in November, although other surveys suggest that support may have rebounded in recent weeks. In Spain, which joined with Great Britain and the United States in a recent unsuccessful effort to win U.N. Security Council support for war, eight in 10 oppose military action against Iraq.
These two trends of public opinion pulling in exactly opposite directions on each side of the Atlantic put new strains on America's relationships with its allies and, more broadly, with the rest of the world. But some experts caution that these differences, which can be expected to widen even further once the war begins, could largely heal if the war is quick, relatively bloodless and does not spread beyond the borders of Iraq.
"I don't think it necessarily means that this is an irreversible trend," said Philip H. Gordon, head of the Brookings Institution's Center on the United States and France. "Once the war is over I think both sides will wake up and realize whether they like it or not, it's in our common interest to work together and people will want to do that," said Gordon, citing past international experiences in the Balkans.
Before that military intervention, he said, "the U.S. and Europe were deeply divided. Once we finally got up the will to go in militarily and moved on to the reconstruction phase, cooperation was excellent, because we all had a common interest."
Partial support for that view came from the Pew survey, which found that residents in most countries surveyed thought that "in the long run the Iraqi people will be better off, and the region more stable, if Iraq is disarmed and Saddam Hussein is removed from power by the U.S. and its allies," Kohut wrote. "Only the Russians and the Turks, who see this as a war by the U.S. against an unfriendly Muslim country, disagree."
Souring European views of Bush and U.S. policies toward Iraq contrast strongly with the surge in backing for the president and his war policies that followed Bush's speech to the country on Monday.
Seven in 10 said they supported Bush's televised call to go to war without the blessing of the United Nations unless Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours, according to the Post-ABC poll.
An equally large majority believe that Bush has done enough to win support from other nations. More than two in three said his policies on Iraq are the right ones, although fewer than half are strongly convinced.
Similarly, two-thirds of those interviewed by the Gallup Organization on Monday approved of Bush's ultimatum to Hussein. Overall, the Gallup poll found that slightly more than four in 10--44 percent – said they approved of the president's decision to go to war if Hussein doesn't leave Iraq "because it's the right thing to do." Another 21 percent were "unsure if war is the right thing, but support Bush anyway because he is the president," Gallup analysts wrote. Another 30 percent opposed Bush's war plans.
Those surveys confirm that the public's preference for a U.N.-endorsed war also has faded into the background following the collapse of efforts by the United States and its allies to win support for a second war resolution in the U.N. Security Council.
Three in four in the Post-ABC News poll disapproved of the way the United Nations has handled the Iraqi crisis, up from slightly more than half three weeks ago. Gallup found that two in three said the United States "had done all it can to solve the crisis diplomatically."
But the anger shown in these poll numbers does not reflect a desire to withdraw from the international community or to punish France for successfully derailing the second U.N. resolution backing war.
Clear majorities want the United States to maintain current relations with both France and the United Nations. Only a third believe that the United States should punish France by withholding support and being less cooperative with the French government, and even fewer (one in five) say the United States should change its relationship with the United Nations.
According to Brookings' Gordon, Americans realize "we're going to need [the Europeans] on North Korea, Afghanistan, the future of Iraq, and the Middle East peace process. . . . These guys, for all their problems, are probably our most like-minded, richest, and most loyal allies. If you don't like them, look around the world and see who'd you'd rather cooperate with to deal with all these global challenges."
The Pew survey, which included a separate poll in the United States, also found broad international support for the United Nations. "There is more consensus on both sides of the Atlantic about the UN: It is still important, say majorities or pluralities in most countries polled," Kohut found.
A total of 510 randomly selected adults were interviewed by the Post and ABC after Bush's speech, while 483 adults were surveyed by CBS and 776 adults were interviewed by Gallup. Margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5 percentage points for the Post-ABC and CBS polls, and 4 percent for the Gallup survey. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represent other potential sources of error in these surveys.
Approximately 5,500 adults were interviewed for the Pew project, including roughly 500 each in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia and Turkey, and about 1,000 each in Great Britain and the United States. |
