The Obama administration has long sought to change the Muslim world’s opinions on American foreign policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. From President Obama’s much hailed speech and somewhat prescient speech on democracy in the Middle East that he offered at the University of Cairo, to his under-appreciated attempts to correctly pronunciation the name of Muslim countries–Pakistan, on top of that list– he has moved to change the view that America was an interventionist imperialist. He has sought to push the opinions of the agenda setters in Muslim countries to something of a view that underscored America’s role as a partner of sorts in a range of experiments on social and economic development.
Early on, many thought that President Obama himself embodied that change; but now, not so! It seems try as it might, the rather negative opinion of and on U.S politics and strategic interests in Pakistan remains distressingly low.
To get a feel for what those opinions may be Lawrence Pintak a scholar at Washington State University conducted a nationwide survey of nearly 400 journalists in Pakistan and reported the results of the study in the Times
The study found that a majority of journalists think that President Obama is sincerely signalling his desire to leave the region by 2014. Moreover, the survey found that journalists are interested in developing a feasible education policy and in curbing domestic terrorism. Nevertheless, there is a widely held opinion, that U.S and ISAF acts are little differen than acts of terrorism conducted by the Taliban. This bit of news could well shape the narrative that Pakistani citizen-leaders read on a daily basis, if the U.S policy on Pakistan carries on per usual.
I invite you, my reader, to examine the chart that somewhat neatly outlines the results of the survey. Please find that document here.