American politicians have long been unpopular in the Middle East. Even before the release of a trailer for what became a hugely offensive anti-Islamic film and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s unfortunate promise to kick the Palestinian issue “down the field”, people in North Africa and the Levant were disenchanted with the world’s only superpower. A new poll released by Gallup – using data taken in the first half of 2012 – shows support for American leadership this year lower than at any point under United States President Barack Obama. Only one in five people in the Middle East approve of US leadership but almost three times that number disapprove, the poll finds. The drop in average approval ratings was both continuous and quite steep, with the positive image of the first two Obama years (reflected in approval rates of 25 percent in 2009 and 2010) falling to just 20
