Americans anxious about US foreign policy - poll

WASHINGTON - Americans are anxious about the direction of United States foreign policy and how the country is perceived overseas and a majority believe the government has been too quick to go to war, a survey said.

"Contrary to conventional wisdom that the American public doesn't know and doesn't care how it is seen abroad, strong majorities" believe the US image overseas is suffering and "large majorities are worried about it," the survey concluded.

Sixty three per cent of Americans say the charge that the US has been too quick to go to war is justified and three-quarters worry about losing trust abroad and about the growing hatred of the US in Muslim countries, it said.

"So far, public thinking is a disquieting mix of high anxiety, growing uncertainty about current policy and virtually no consensus about what else the country might do," the survey concluded.

The national survey of 1004 American adults between June 1 and June 13 was conducted by the Public Agenda, a non-profit organisation dedicated to public policy research, in conjunction with Foreign Affairs magazine, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations.

It was funded by the Ford Foundation and is intended to be the first in a series of surveys designed to produce a "foreign policy index" that measures long-term US thinking on foreign policy.

Dan Yankelovich, Public Agenda's chairman, declined to describe the results as a reprimand of the Bush administration but said "there is definitely dissatisfaction ... a feeling that we're not on the right track."

Although much of the concern focused on Iraq and US relations with Muslim countries, the survey found that the problems of illegal immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs overseas also resonated strongly with the public.

These issues have received less attention from political leaders but the survey found that attitudes "are reaching a point where the public's concerns will be too strong to be ignored."

Sixty four per cent of respondents said the US government should put more emphasis on using diplomatic and economic methods to fight terrorism and 72 per cent said that showing more respect for the views and needs of other countries would enhance US security.

But the public also believed strongly in the US as a force for humanitarian good, with 83 per cent giving the country high marks for helping other countries during natural disasters, the survey found.

- REUTERS