SINGAPORE -- In an Oct. 1 report to the U.S. Congress, titled "Changing Minds, Winning Peace," a high-level panel warned that "hostility toward America had reached shocking levels." It recommended that the administration overhaul and increase public-relations efforts to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs.
U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged to change the Middle East by bringing democracy, human rights and development through a free-trade pact (with America) to Islamic countries. In his most recent speech, he again called for a "forward policy on freedom and democracy," arguing that Muslim countries could and should embrace democracy. But violent incidents in Baghdad, Najaf, Falujah and Thikrit against coalition forces and international agencies, including the U.N. and Red Cross, constitute an ominous challenge to Bush's vision.
America's image has probably sunken to its lowest level ever. U.S. credibility and international sympathy were at a peak immediately following 9/11. The tide has turned since U.S. military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and even more recently, the controversial American-British intervention in Iraq. The latest Pew Survey highlighted a significant rise in level of anti-Americanism in the past 18 months in Muslim countries, ranging from Egypt and Jordan to Pakistan and Indonesia.