Anti-Americanism Reaches New Highs

June 27, 2007 — -- Anti-American attitudes have risen to new heights among people from Muslim countries, and they have gone up even among people from staunch U.S. allies, according to a new survey by the Pew Global Attitude Project.

America is not the only target of rotten tomatoes thrown from all over the global village.

In the extensive international opinion poll, all world powers--or their leaders -- saw higher unfavorable ratings among respondents. Among the losers: Russia's Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, as well as nations like China.

"Instead of showing a sense of optimism and can-do that has been evident in history since World War II, well, that seems to be moving away," said former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a news conference Wednesday. "There's this kind of sense of nihilism now."

Though the numbers paint an overall pessimistic take on America's image, Albright pointed to strong showings in Africa and non-Muslim parts of Asia.

"I am an optimist who worries a lot," Albright, who co-chaired the report, insisted.

America's image is still strong in Africa, where 74 percent of people polled expressed positive opinions of the United States, followed by Latin America (55 percent), Eastern Europe (48 percent), Asia (44 percent), Western Europe (43 percent) and Middle East (21 percent).

This is the sixth and largest installment of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The survey encompasses 45,000 interviews from 47 countries over a two-month period.

Polling analysis by ABC News overall affirms the survey as representative of Pew's high standards, but data for some of the major countries like China, India and Brazil is too focused on urban areas, which don't represent a truly national opinion. ABC found similar issues in the samples used in Bolivia, Ivory Coast, Pakistan, South Africa and Venezuela.

Old Allies, New Disdain

The view of America from survey respondents in "old Europe" reached new lows this year, continuing a long slide that began in 2000. More than half of those surveyed in Britain, France and Germany held a positive view of the United States at the start of this decade. Around 2003 and 2004, with the start of the Iraq War, those numbers had reversed with more than half of those surveyed holding an unfavorable view of the United States.