New Poll Says Iraq is Defining How Arabs View US, Rest of World

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-12-03-voa6.cfm

According to a public opinion poll taken in six Middle Eastern countries, the conflict in Iraq is playing a major role in how the Arab world views the United States and the rest of the world.

One of those involved in the poll, University of Maryland Middle East expert Shibley Telhami, told a Washington news conference that the results of the poll, taken in October, should worry the United States. "Arabs are looking at the world through the prism of Iraq. That is a new prism and it's a troubling prism from the point of view of the U.S., because it's not a good prism for the United States of America today, and that explains a lot of the troubling answers from the point of view of American foreign policy," he said.

Mr. Telhami conducted the survey jointly with the U.S.-based polling group Zogby International. They interviewed a total of 39-hundred people in six countries -- Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

The margin of error was 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent in all the countries, except the United Arab Emirates, where it was 6.8 percent.

A majority of the respondents said they view Israel and the United States as the biggest threats to their nations, and while the United States says spreading democracy in the Middle East is its major goal there, most of those surveyed believe the United States' main objective in Iraq is oil -- not democracy.

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