Not Just the US Optimistic about Obama

That assessment was seconded in an article on the global reaction to the transfer of power from Bush to Obama published Friday in the influential National Journal entitled, simply, "The World Exhales". "Some days, it seems as if most of the world took all the breath it was holding as it waited for President Bush to leave office and exhaled it into expectation balloons that threaten to carry Obama away," the author noted.

The latest BBC survey, which was carried out in most countries in December, included 1,000 or more respondents in each of the 17 countries. Latin American countries included Chile and Mexico; African countries included Ghana and Nigeria. Other countries included Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain in Western Europe; Egypt, Turkey in the Greater Middle East; and Japan, Indonesia, and China in East Asia.

The most optimistic views were found in Ghana, where 87 percent of respondents said US relations with the world would improve under Obama; continental Western Europe (an average of about 78 percent); Mexico and Nigeria (74 percent); Britain (70 percent); and Chile and China (68 percent). Sixty-five percent of U.S. respondents said they expected improvement in their country's relations with the rest of the world.

Particularly notable, according to Kull, was the sharp rise in optimism in the predominantly Islamic countries compared to last August, from 29 to 58 percent in Egypt; 46 to 64 percent in Indonesia; and 11 to 51 percent in Turkey, whose traditionally pro-U.S. public turned sharply antagonistic with the Iraq invasion.

The only two countries where pluralities—rather than majorities—expressed optimism about Obama's presidency were Japan (48 percent) and Russia (at 47 percent, a major rise from 11 percent in August where US-Russian tensions reached their zenith during the Georgia crisis).

In terms of Obama's priorities, Western Europeans (about two-thirds), with the exception of Germany (49 percent), rated climate change a top priority. Chileans (68 percent), Chinese (65 percent), and Japanese (57 percent) agreed. By contrast, only 41 percent of U.S. respondents and a mere 18 percent of Russians were of the same mind.

On brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, 75 percent of Egyptians called it a top priority, followed by 58 percent of Chinese, an average of about 55 percent among Western European respondents. The exception again was Germans, of whom only 20 percent rated the conflict a top priority, although 57 percent characterized it "important but not top." Small majorities of Mexicans and Chileans put it in the "top" category, but only 37 percent of U.S. respondents did so. Most polling was done before the Gaza crisis broke out.

At 82 percent, Egyptians also topped the list of those publics that see U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as a "top" priority. An average of about two-thirds of Mexicans, Chileans, and Chinese agreed with that assessment, as did a majority of Spaniards, British, and Italians. Forty-one percent of U.S. respondents call it a "top" priority.

In what could bode ill for Obama's pledge to gain more support from NATO for efforts to thwart the Taliban in Afghanistan, US respondents were the most enthusiastic, with 46 percent calling it a "top priority." While British respondents were close behind at 42 percent, the notion was somewhat less popular among other NATO allies, ranging from a low of 13 percent of German respondents to a high of 35 percent among Spanish respondents.

Still, majorities exceeding 60 percent considered it either a "top" or an "important" priority among all NATO members polled, including 68 percent among Turkish respondents.

On dealing with the financial crisis, Chinese respondents showed the greatest concern: 93 percent called it a "top priority". Germans were next at 83 percent, while only pluralities in India (47 percent) and Nigeria (49 percent) rated placed it in the "top" category.