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United States Viewed Unfavorably the World Over

It looks like some of our allies find the United States to be a greater threat to global stability than Iran. Ouch.

President Bush and his administration are really trying to improve this situation, though.

Indeed, the US image abroad has continued to deteriorate, despite a concerted effort by the Bush administration to turn things around by mending fences with key allies, taking concrete steps to make diplomacy work, and expanding public-diplomacy efforts in the Middle East and other regions.

I mean, the president has even taken “steps to make diplomacy work”. What more do you want from the guy? Sure, we used to throw caution to the wind and invade countries willy nilly. But now we actually try to talk about things before we begin our bombing, invasion, and eventual occupation.

Low public esteem for the US makes it more difficult for governments to unabashedly side with the US on international issues, while less attraction to America can mean a smaller slice of the global tourism pie for the US.

Forget the tourism thing for a second. Here is the real issue. When the United States is as unpopular the world over as it is, it becomes a lot more difficult to gain support for particular stances we take on international issues. It becomes that much harder to get people to agree with us that Iran having a nuclear weapon is a very bad thing. It becomes that much harder to convince foreign governments to turn over terrorists to us that are active threats to our country.

I’m not saying we should elect our president based on whether or not the rest of the world likes him or her. That’s ridiculous. Foreigners aren’t United States citizens (by definition), and thus they have no vote and no say on who becomes president. But, it’s important that we, as Americans, are at least cognizant of the fact that playing nice with the international community has its benefits. “Coalition-building” isn’t just a wartime phenomenon. It’s also necessary to make diplomacy work.

And one of the allies who thinks the United States is more of a threat to global security than Iran?

Another poll published this week by the Harris group shows that Europeans generally pick the US as the world’s biggest threat to global security over Iran. This was true even in Britain, although Germans and Italians rank the US below Iran.