The Iraq War and foreign support for the United States

From Julia Sweig, Reversing Anti-American Sentiment Requires New U.S. Engagement on Global Problems (interview with Bernard Gwertzman) Councile on Foreign Relations 03/27/06:

It's interesting how the polls have been so negative about the United States' image around the world. And it even precedes the Iraq war, right?

Absolutely. I think that the polls began to turn in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11. They began to turn with the invasion of Afghanistan [in October 2001], but I think had we stopped in Afghanistan, they wouldn't have plummeted further. They begin to plummet in 2002 before the Iraq invasion when it became clear that the United States was going to go to war in Iraq. And it's not only over Iraq that they begin to drop. They begin to turn downward over the withdrawal from the Kyoto Agreement, over the perception that the United States is thumbing its nose at the international community's major global issues, whether over the [U.S. rejection of the] ICC [International Criminal Court], the [U.S. withdrawal from the] ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty, that sort of thing. Then along comes Iraq and that really sends the numbers dropping downward further.

Let's say American troops are substantially out of Iraq by this time next year. Would that have much effect on the perception of the United States?

I'm skeptical that a withdrawal from Iraq, however it happens, over whatever timeline, will substantially enhance our image—at least in the short term—because I think we're going to get criticized whether we leave abruptly, whether we leave slowly, largely because of the shape that Iraq itself is in and also because the legacy of the diplomacy around the war, the unilateralism of it and the chaos and failures in its operational aspects have really hit us hard. I think what will happen, though, as an indirect spillover effect is that if our departure from Iraq allows us to pay better attention to other major global issues, that may in fact enhance our standing, but not the departure from Iraq per se.

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