Excerpts from testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, 17 May 2007

Today I will focus on attitudes in the Muslim world. Clearly the Muslim world is of particular interest as it is a major source of violence against the US. As you have already heard it is also an area of the world with particularly negative feelings toward the United States....

In particular I want to address the question of whether negative feelings toward the US have an important impact on the US effort to deal with al Qaeda and its related groups. In this context some have argued that what is important is not that people in the region like the US, but that they fear it. When forced to make a choice between the US and al Qaeda, it is surmised, this fear will increase the likelihood that people in the region will choose the US. Others have argued that negative feelings toward the US drive Muslims into the arms of al Qaeda; that people in Muslim countries are so angry at the US that this leads them to actively support al Qaeda in its fight against America. According to our research, neither of these views is quite correct. However, I will say from the beginning that our research does show that anti-American feelings do make it easier for al Qaeda to operate and to grow in the Muslim world....

For decades, polls in the Muslim world and the statements of Muslim leaders have shown a variety of resentments about US policies. Muslims share the worldwide view that the US does not live up to its own ideals of international law and democracy. There have also been specific complaints that the US favors Israel over the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole, that the US exploits the Middle East for its oil and that it hypocritically supports non-democratic governments that accommodate its interests. These attitudes persist.

But now there is also a new feeling about the US that has emerged in the wake of 9-11. This is not so much an intensification of negative feelings toward the US as much as a new perception of American intentions. There now seems to be a perception that the US has entered into a war against Islam itself. I think perhaps the most significant finding of our study is that across the four countries, 8 in 10 believe that the US seeks to "weaken and divide the Islamic world." ...

Most disturbing there is widespread support for attacks on US troops. Overall about half of all the Muslims polled approve of attacks on US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf. Support reaches as high as nine in 10 in Egypt. It appears that American troops stationed throughout the region are widely perceived as occupiers.

In the focus groups, some respondents said that this sense of Islam as being under siege has enhanced people’s identification with Islam. Polling done by the Anwar Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland in Arab countries over the last few years has found a dramatic increase in the number citing their Muslim identity as primary. In our poll seven in 10 approved of the goal of requiring "a strict application of sharia law in every Islamic country." ...

But in fact al Qaeda is not popular. Across the four countries only about 3 in 10 express positive feelings toward Osama bin Laden and only 1 in 7 say they both share al Qaeda’s views of the US and approve of its methods....

Though al Qaeda and America are both seen as largely illegitimate, America is seen as the greater threat. It is as if Muslims are living in a neighborhood where there are two warlords operating. They do not like either one, but one is much more powerful. As long as the weaker one is standing up to the stronger one, it makes sense that they are inclined to play down their dislike for the weaker one....

Our study has found that anti-American feeling is by itself not enough to lead one to actively support al Qaeda. To approve of attacks on civilians one must have views that--I am pleased to report--are quite unusual in the Muslim world. However, anti-American feeling can lead Muslims to suppress their moral doubts about al Qaeda. This makes it politically more difficult for governments to take strong action against al Qaeda, it makes general publics more likely to passively accept al Qaeda and it creates an environment where it is more likely that individuals will cross the threshold into actively supporting al Qaeda. In other words it gives al Qaeda more room to maneuver.

In closing, I will not go so far as to make policy recommendations, but I would like to point out a few of the policy implications of what we have found. When the US decides whether to expand its military presence in a region clearly there are many factors that need to be taken into account. The impact on public opinion is only one. But the impact on public opinion can have significant consequences on the ground as we are seeing vividly in Iraq today. When the US acts on its own initiative, without multilateral approval, these public feelings are also apt to be highly focused at the US itself....

Full text available from the subcommittee's Web site.

Addendum: "Muslim Public Opinion on US Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda," 24 April 2007, WorldPublicOpinion.org

Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org, is director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA). He directs the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll of the US public, plays a central role in the BBC World Service Poll of global opinion and the polls of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and is the principal investigator of a major study of social support of anti-American terrorist groups in Islamic countries.