Americans turning inward, study says
Seen as reaction to world criticism
PARIS -- Shaken by the Iraq war and the rise of anti-American sentiment around the world, Americans are turning inward, a Pew survey of US opinion leaders and the general public suggests.
The survey, conducted this autumn and released yesterday, found a revival of isolationist feelings among the public similar to the sentiment that followed the Vietnam War in the 1970s and the end of the Cold War in the 1990s.
At the same time, the survey showed, Americans are feeling less unilateralist than in the past, in what appeared to indicate a desire for a more modest foreign policy.
Forty-two percent of Americans think the United States should ''mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own," according to the survey, which was conducted by the Pew Research Center in association with the Council on Foreign Relations.
That is an increase of 40 percent since a poll taken in December 2002, before the US-led invasion of Iraq; at that time only 30 percent of Americans said the country should mind its own business internationally.
The result appeared to represent a rejection by the public of President Bush's goal of promoting democracy in other nations, a major plank of his administration's foreign policy.
''We're seeing a backlash against a bumbled foreign policy," said Stephen Van Evera, political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said Americans were concerned over failure to make progress on North Korea and Iran, or in the fight against Al Qaeda, but he added, ''The American people in particular are looking at Iraq and seeing nothing's working."
The survey also found the following:
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the United States should play a shared leadership role, and only 25 percent want the country to be the most active of leading nations.
Two-thirds of Americans say that there is less international respect for the United States than in the past. When asked why, strong majorities --71 percent of the public, 88 percent of opinion leaders -- cite the war in Iraq.
