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Most Pakistanis View U.S. as Enemy, Want Afghan War to End, Survey Finds
Two-thirds of Pakistanis oppose the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and roughly six in 10 think the U.S. is an enemy, according to a new survey.
The data, released today by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington, underscores the challenges facing the Obama administration, which has made Pakistan a key ally in its fight to rout Afghanistan-based Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan this month to announce aid of $1.5 billion a year for five years that is meant to build Pakistani support for the U.S. war strategy. By the end of fiscal 2010, the U.S. will have given Pakistan about $6 billion in development and humanitarian aid since 2001, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
“You cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s involvement,” Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan told senators who question the level and effectiveness of that aid on July 13. “There’s a direct correlation between Afghanistan, Pakistan and our homeland security.”
The Pew survey found that only 11 percent of Pakistanis see the U.S. as a partner and just 8 percent have confidence that President Barack Obama will make good decisions on global affairs.
Resisting Terrorists
Clinton said June 25 that the U.S. is determined to “strengthen Afghanistan and Pakistan to be able to withstand the pressures from these extremist terrorist networks.”
Yet the percentage of Pakistanis who support U.S. involvement in the fight against extremists has dropped to 19 percent this year from 24 percent in 2009.
And fewer Pakistanis see the militants as a threat. In 2009, 57 percent of Pakistanis saw the Taliban as a “very serious threat” to their country. This year, the number fell to 34 percent. Last year, 41 percent said al-Qaeda posed a very serious threat to Pakistan. This year, 21 percent of respondents felt that way.
In contrast, 52 percent said India posed the greatest threat to their country.
“Pakistan has a long history of feeling like the U.S. has abandoned it, favored India, has not been a consistent ally,” said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
“Many Pakistanis associate the violence in Pakistan with the U.S. presence and the Afghan war,” Cordesman said. Those attitudes are reinforced by nationalistic media and hard-line religious groups and because Pakistanis have yet to feel the effects of U.S. aid, Cordesman said.
‘Legacy of Suspicion’
Clinton, during her visit to Pakistan, acknowledged a “legacy of suspicion” among Pakistanis. It is “not going to disappear overnight,” she said.
The U.S. is “committed for the long haul” to working with Pakistanis “as you pursue this very difficult struggle,” she said July 19 after talks with Pakistani officials.
The Pakistani survey is part of the larger Pew Global Attitudes project conducted in 22 nations.
Pew said its survey was based on face-to-face interviews with 2,000 Pakistanis conducted from April 13 to April 28 in all four provinces of the country. Areas of instability, accounting for roughly 16 percent of the population, were not polled. The margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net.
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