Anti-Americanism Is Providing a Glue
WASHINGTON — The outpouring of anti-American rhetoric at the United Nations this week is demonstrating how anger at the United States is uniting the developing world in a way not seen since the 1980s, U.S. officials and analysts say.
Leaders such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Sudan's Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are divided by background and political philosophies, but they spoke as one at the General Assembly regarding perceived U.S. bullying and misdeeds.
Chavez denounced the "imperialist empire," Ahmadinejad railed against U.S. officials' pretensions to be the "rulers of the world," and Bashir complained about powerful intruders trampling his country's sovereignty.
"There's a new sense of the oppressed versus the oppressor," said a senior U.S. official, who asked to remain unnamed. "What they have in common is their hatred of the U.S., and it's created this solidarity across Third World lines."
That solidarity hasn't been seen in the developing world since leftist liberation movements faded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said.
The fallout from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and other Bush administration policies may be particularly visible in the new bonds between many Muslim nations and populist regimes of South America, an alliance that some call the "axis of the south."
Chavez has become a hero among Muslims, flattered with huge posters in Beirut and given lavish coverage in the news media from Morocco to Pakistan.
Anti-Americanism was the overarching theme last week in Havana at a 118-nation summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, whose headliners included Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The leaders embodied a burgeoning spirit of defiance toward "the worldwide dictatorship by the United States," declared Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage Davila.
There is little doubt of the deepening unpopularity of the United States, even among longtime allies. Though the U.S. government has doubled its spending on public diplomacy, a poll this year by the Pew Charitable Trusts showed wide dissatisfaction with a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy, the "war against terrorism."
When people in largely Muslim nations were asked whether they approved of "U.S.-led efforts to fight terrorism," 82% in Egypt said no, as did 74% in Jordan, 77% in Turkey and 50% in Pakistan. The results in some European countries were similar. In Spain, 76% of those surveyed said they did not approve; in France, it was 57%.
