A majority of people in the Arab world now hold a negative view of President Barack Obama and the United States in a substantial change from how he was seen at the start of his presidency, according to a public opinion poll released Thursday. Sixty-two percent hold a dim view of Obama and the United States compared with 20 percent who view them in a positive light, according to the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll released by Washington-based think tank The Brookings Institution. In a survey early in his presidency, only 23 percent of respondents in six countries expressed a negative view of Obama and the United States, while 45 percent were positive about the new administration, which took office in January 2009. In the latest poll, 63 percent said they were discouraged by Obama's Middle East policy and 16 percent said they were hopeful. The findings also marked a reversal from the previous year, when more than half were optimistic about US Middle East policy and only 15 percent were discouraged. A majority (61 percent) of the nearly 4,000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates said they were most disappointed with Obama's policies on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. More than half of those polled (54 percent) said an Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement would improve their views of the United States the most. – Reuters In last year's survey, half the respondents said withdrawing troops from Iraq was the number-one thing the United States could do to improve its image in the Arab world.
