I do Time.com's job for them

Time.com has a report about the latest survey by the Pew Research group on the world's attitude toward the United States. Overall, the news is looking better for the US, for the first time since the start of the Iraq war, foreign opinion of the United States has increased, albeit slightly. Some of that may be because President Bush will soon be out of the picture - nearly 4 in 10 nations polled thought foreign relations would improve under a new president, with most feeling that Barack Obama would do a better job on the world stage than John McCain. On the downside, a majority of nations thought that the US had too much influence on their domestic affairs and nearly half identified us as the world's largest polluter (China was also cited as polluting too much). Their article on the Pew survey is here.

The Time.com article ends with a few items that the author, Gilbert Cruz, puts out as truly imponderable questions that he wished the poll had answered. Frankly, they're not all that imponderable. He asks:

1. Why, for example, do Russians prefer powerful leaders to straight-up democracies? (Pew found 57% of Russians "favor a 'leader with a strong hand'")

This one is fairly simple (especially if you've been reading AWV for awhile). Going back through the history of the Communists and the Czars before them, Russia has traditionally had "strong leaders" - a system where one person held broad authoritarian powers, so in a sense that is what is expected in a leader. Now combine that with the chaotic situation Russia went through in the 1990's under a not-so-strong leader, Boris Yeltsin. Going from a world power (as the Soviet Union) to a pauper country with a collapsed economy was a shock to the Russians and a rather poor introduction to this whole "democracy" thing. Since Russia has seen its economy and at least some of its world standing restored under the strong hand of Vladimir Putin, its not really surprising that 57% would say they prefer a strong leader.

2. Why do Tanzanians like President Bush so much? (Tanzania was one of three countries where a majority approved of Bush)

Probably it’s because of Pres. Bush's efforts at combating HIV/AIDS in Africa. Unless he can pull an Israel-Palestine peace agreement out of his hat in the next few months, Bush's most positive legacy will likely be the effort he has put in at bringing resources to bear against the disease in Africa, which has had a positive effect on reducing HIV/AIDS.

3. Oh, and why does Turkey dislike America so much? (Only 12% of Turks told Pew they had a favorable view of the US)

This one is due in large part to the Iraq war. No part of Iraq benefited more from removing Saddam Hussein from power than did the Kurdish north. The US has been supportive of the Kurds, in large part because it’s been a relatively peaceful part of a chaotic country. The problem is that some Kurdish groups have been fighting a decades-long terrorist war against Turkey in an effort to carve out a Kurdish homeland in SE Turkey. Since the fall of Saddam, some Kurdish groups have been using Iraq as a safe haven to launch attacks into Turkey. When the Turks have tried to use military force to break up what they call terrorist camps in Iraq, the US has tried to stop them, worrying that Turkish action will destabilize the part of Iraq being held up as a model of what the whole country can become (peaceful, stable, etc.).
So if you are a Turk, it is easy to the US as preventing your country from fighting terrorists attacking your homeland, something that might tend to give you a negative view of America.

That's just a few thoughts off the top of my head. I'm sure the folks at Time.com could come up with some more in-depth answers though if they were motivated to go out and look for them.