The United States military operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death in Pakistan made an already unpopular US even less popular with some Pakistanis, who likely perceived it as further impingement on their sovereignty, results from a Gallup poll conducted on May 9-12 immediately after the operation showed.
The results underscored then how difficult the task would be for Pakistan and the US to repair relations; now, that task is likely even more difficult. Sixty-four percent of Pakistanis surveyed who were aware of the US action said it made them have a more negative opinion of America, while 5 percent say it made them have a more positive opinion.
The 10 percent of Pakistanis who approved of US leadership after the military operation was down from 18 percent in 2010, but not meaningfully lower than what Gallup measured in 2008 and 2009. Disapproval, however, soared to a record-high 85 percent.
While few Pakistanis overall approved of US leadership, those who were aware of the US action were slightly more likely to approve of US leadership (11 percent) than those who were not aware (4 percent). But the results also suggested there was resentment for the US action even among the Pakistanis who approved of US leadership. A majority of these Pakistanis said the action made them have more negative opinions of America.
At the same time, Pakistanis did not place much faith in their own country’s leadership: 25 percent in the May 9-12 survey said they were confident. The significant pressure the Pakistani government faces from within – particularly now with its civilian government in crisis – likely figures heavily into the likelihood of any normalcy in the relationship between the two nations.
PAKISTANIS’ VIEWS OF THE WEST: The poll showed that although few Pakistanis gave US leadership high marks, many more found it personally very important that Muslim societies and Western societies get along. While most of the interviewing for the April and May 2011 poll in Pakistan took place before bin Laden’s death and it is difficult to tell what effect that might have had, 43 percent of Pakistanis at the time said it was very important to them that the two societies got along, up from 27 percent in 2010.
Pakistanis so far have been more likely to see Muslim societies investing more in this relationship than the West. Sixty-two percent of Pakistanis in April and May 2011 said Muslim societies respected the West, while 19 percent of Pakistanis said Western societies respected Muslim ones. A majority (55 percent) of Pakistanis said they did not believe the West respected Muslim societies.
At the same time, Pakistanis remained more mixed on what greater interaction between Western and Muslim societies meant for them. Overall, they leaned more toward seeing it as offering more of a threat than a benefit. Thirty-nine percent of Pakistanis viewed greater interaction as a threat, while 31 percent viewed it as more of a benefit and another 31 percent said they did not know.
The results for the two surveys are based on face-to-face interviews conducted between April 25 and May 14, 2011, and May 9-12, 2011, with approximately 1,000 adults in each survey, aged 15 and older, covering urban and rural areas across all four provinces in Pakistan. Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Azad Jammu and Kashmir were excluded from the May 9-12 study. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
