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An overwhelming majority of citizens in 13 countries across West Asia and North Africa say they do not trust US claims about “encouraging the development of democracy” or about “improving the economic lot of people,” according to a poll released on 7 April by US analytics and advisory company Gallup.
Respondents in Iran, Tunisia, Palestine, and Afghanistan were the most distrustful about Washington’s ‘democratic’ intentions. Only in Kuwait and Morocco did the negative perception of Washington drop below 50 percent of respondents.
Washington’s commitment to self-determination also faces great skepticism among adults in the nations surveyed, as 35 to 80 percent of respondents agree that the US does not allow people in their region to fashion their own political future.
The same suspicion extends to US claims about wanting to help improve the region’s economic standing, with a crushing majority in Iran, Turkiye, Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan saying Washington has no interest in allowing their nations to develop.
“Kuwaitis and Jordanians were the most likely to see the U.S. as serious, but just over a third agree this is the case,” the Gallup report says.
“Twenty years after the U.S. launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, despite stated US desires, relatively few Iraqis or people living in 12 other Muslim-majority countries view the US as committed to supporting democracy in their region or empowering them to chart their own political futures,” the report concludes.
The poll results come at a time when Washington is seeing its influence rapidly diminish across West Asia following decades of pursuing a foreign policy centered mainly on armed occupation and economic warfare.
In February, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) released a poll that revealed a growing chasm between western nations and the population of the Global South concerning the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
“All in all, for 61 percent of people in Russia, 61 percent in China, 51 percent in Turkiye, and 48 percent in India, the future world order will be defined either by multipolarity or Chinese (or other non-western) dominance,” the ECFR report states.
Similarly, last year the 14th Annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey showed that young Arabs favor their nations’ ties with Russia, Turkiye, and China over the US.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, a growing number of Global South nations have moved away from Washington’s sphere of influence, refusing to impose sanctions on Russia and even dumping the US dollar in bilateral trade with China.
This is compounded by the ever-shrinking presence of the greenback in foreign reserves worldwide and the failure of western sanctions against nations deemed adversarial.
“Because they do not adhere to the policies of the US and other western powers, over 24 countries have been the target of unilateral or partial trade sanctions. These limitations, nevertheless, have turned out to be detrimental to the economies of the Group of Seven (G7) nations and have begun to impact the US dollar’s hegemony in world trade,” The Cradle columnist F.M. Shakil explained earlier this year.