Two years into Barack Obama's presidency, approval of US leadership fell in several allies in the Middle East, but was still higher than under George W. Bush, a poll showed Friday. "World-wide, views of US leadership are better than they were in 2008, but the 2010 data suggest that the honeymoon is likely over and now the hard work begins," the Gallup poll said.
The poll was conducted before the recent popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world. In Egypt, in which Obama made a historic "New Beginning" speech to the Muslim world in June 2009, the US approval rating dropped by 12 points, from 31 percent in 2009 to 19 percent in 2010.
The 2010 approval rating in Egypt, however, was still 13 percent above the 2008 rating under Bush. The approval rating among Tunisians fell 8 percent in 2010. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the US approval rating dropped by 19 points, to 15 percent in 2010.
Algerians' view of the United States also dimmed, falling from 45 percent to 35 percent between 2009 and 2010. Last year's figure was still 10 percentage points higher than in 2008. Overall in the Middle East and Asia, approval of US leadership stood at around 30 percent during the last two years of the Bush administration. That rose sharply in 2009, to 38 percent, and in spite of the lower approval ratings in Egypt, the UAE or Japan, continued to rise in 2010 to reach 41 percent.
No explanation was given as to why individual countries' or regions' approval rates changed. Following an initial surge after Obama took office in 2009, the US approval rating in Latin America and the Caribbean fell by nine percentage points last year. Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are set to travel to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador between March 19 and 23. The trip is designed to highlight economic and trade issues, and energy and security co-operation.