WASHINGTON — Confidence in President Barack Obama among the world’s Muslims is slipping, according to a poll of global attitudes that also found widespread concern that the United States remained a go-it-alone nation even under the new administration.
The survey, by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, found support for Obama had remained strong in most nations even while his approval rating at home had slipped. But in five of seven Muslim nations that were polled, he was regarded with approval by about one-third or less of respondents, and his popularity had slid over the last year.
The finding is likely to be of concern to the White House, which has worked hard to improve the U.S. image abroad, particularly in the Muslim world.
Obama got his worst grades for his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of 22 nations polled, a majority supported his approach to the issue in only three — France, Nigeria and Kenya.
Obama administration officials have been concerned about damage to the White House image in the Muslim world stemming from developments in Gaza, where Israel, a staunch U.S. ally, has been tightly restricting the flow of goods, citing the need to prevent Hamas militants in charge of Gaza from obtaining arms.
In Pakistan, the number of Muslims who approved of Obama fell from 15 percent to 8 percent during the last year. Among Muslims in Egypt, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid, support for Obama has fallen from 41 percent to 31 percent; in Turkey, it has dropped from 33 percent to 23 percent.
The survey was conducted in 22 countries from April 7 to May 8. In each country, the sample varied, but at least 700 to up to 3,200 people were questioned on the phone or in face-to-face interviews. The margin of sampling error ranged from 2.5 percentage points to 5 percentage points.
