Poll: 'Striking Arab ambivalence towards foreign intervention & support for a nuclear Iran!'

"... The poll also found overwhelming support for opposition forces battling autocratic governments in Syria (86%) and Yemen (89%), as well as strong support in the region for the opposition in Bahrain (64%), although majorities in the two Gulf countries - the UAE and Saudi Arabia - said their sympathies lay more with the al-Khalifa monarchy, according to Telhami.

It also showed a striking ambivalence about the foreign intervention in Libya that contributed to the eventual ouster - and killing - of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Asked to assess, in retrospect, the intervention, 35% of respondents said it was the "right thing to do", while 46% said it was the "wrong thing to do".

"I would've have thought there was more support," said Telhami,...

Asked to pick who in a list of nine foreign leaders they would like the next Egyptian president to look like, a whopping 38% cited Erdogan; Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, 11%; former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, 9%; and Saudi King Abdullah, 8%. Obama was cited by only 5% of the respondents.

When the same question was put to respondents in all five countries, Erdogan also came out on top at 31%, followed distantly by Abdullah, Mandela, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (9%), and Ahmadinejad (8%). Obama was cited by 4%, just behind both Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but ahead of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

And when Egyptians were asked what foreign country they wanted their political system to most closely resemble, 44% chose Turkey, followed by France at 10%, and Saudi Arabia, China and Germany at 8% each.

"Turkey is really the model in Egypt," said Telhami.

Asked to name two countries which they believed have played the most constructive role in the Arab Spring, half of respondents in all five countries chose Turkey, 30% chose France, 24% said the US, 20% said China and 11% chose Britain.

Those results, according to Telhami, may reflect the regional ambivalence toward foreign intervention - France and Britain having been the most aggressive; China, the least; while Washington's role of "leading from behind" fell somewhere in between.

While Turkey emerged as the year's superstar, the US and Obama fared substantially better in Arab public opinion than in 2010, although not as well as in 2009 when hopes for major changes in US Middle East policy under Obama were riding high. The 2010 survey was conducted shortly after the fatal interception by Israeli commandos of the Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza - an incident which created outrage against both Israel and the US, which defended the raid.

Thus, 26% of respondents in the five countries voiced favorable opinions of the US, up from only 10% last year. As for Obama, 34% voiced "positive" views this year, up from 19% in 2010, but this was down from 39% in 2009.

While 47% of Arab respondents said they were "hopeful" about US Middle East policy in 2009, however, only 20% are "hopeful" today, up only marginally from 14% last year, according to the survey.

Much of the disillusionment appears tied to US support for Israel, according to Telhami. Asked what two steps Washington could take to improve its standing in the region, 55% and 42% of respondents, respectively, said achieving an Israel-Palestine peace agreement and "stopping [US] aid to Israel".

Similarly, a wide plurality (46%) of respondents said the Israel-Palestine issue was their biggest disappointment about US policy during the past year.

And while the poll found strong enduring support (67%) for a two-state solution among Arab respondents, it also uncovered a major loss of confidence that it could be achieved through bilateral negotiations, as Israel and the US have insisted.

While 40% of respondents last year said they believed such negotiations could bring about a solution, only 20% believe that today. Nearly four in 10 (39%) respondents said it would only happen through an imposed settlement by the United Nations (24%) or the US (15%).

On Iran, 64% of respondents said they believed it had the right to pursue a nuclear program - up from 53% in 2009. Only 25% said it should be pressured to abandon the program, down from 40% two years ago. As with Bahrain, however, majorities in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, whose governments have charged that Iran was trying to dominate the Gulf, supported pressure.

They appear to have made some progress in persuading Arab public opinion elsewhere that Tehran poses a major threat. Eighteen percent of the respondents from the five countries named Iran when asked to name two countries that posed the greatest threat to them - up from 12% in 2009.

By comparison, however, Israel was named by 71% of respondents, and the US by 59%..."