Poll: U.S. Image In Tatters Abroad

11 Of 16 Nations Have More Favorable View Of China Than The U.S.

(AP)  Support for the U.S.-led war on terror has dipped in European countries like Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Spain, while it remains low in the Muslim countries surveyed like Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan.

"There is a general recognition that terrorism is a terrible problem that strikes home in countries all over the world," said John Danforth, the former Republican senator from Missouri who also was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"The position of the United States as the one surviving superpower is to be assertive in responding in a world of terrorism. But in the rest of the world, there is a great wariness about that," said Danforth, now a St. Louis attorney.

The poll found a positive reaction in European countries to President Bush's campaign for more democracy in countries around the world. People in Muslim countries were wary of the U.S. campaign, but supportive of the idea of democracy in their own countries.

Danforth said the attitudes in the Mideast about democracy were a bright spot.

"We should keep plugging away on democracy," he said. "But we need to do a better job of communicating what we're trying to do."

The survey found that a majority in most countries say the United States doesn't take the interests of other countries into account when making international policy decisions. It also found most would like to see another country get as much military power as the United States, though few want China to play that role. People in most countries were more inclined to say the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place.

People in other countries who had unfavorable views of the United States were most likely to cite Mr. Bush as the reason rather than a general problem with America.

Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state when Bill Clinton was president, said big majorities of the public in these countries are discontented with President Bush "and say Bush's re-election has made them view the United States less favorably."

The polls were taken in various countries from late April to the end of May with samples of about 1,000 in most countries, with more interviews in India and China and slightly less than 1,000 in the European countries. The margin of sampling error ranged from 2 percentage points to 4 percentage points, depending on the sample size.