Ryan Kostanecki, McNair Scholar

1
Attitudes Towards United States Foreign Policy
Regarding the War in Iraq A Comparative Analysis
of American and Middle Eastern College Students
Ryan Kostanecki, McNair Scholar Dr. Chris Owens
Dr. Moataz Fattah, Political Science
Department Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program
Central Michigan University Honors Program
Introduction As the War on Terror continues,
American and world attitudes towards American
foreign policy regarding the war in Iraq continue
to decline. Politicians and pundits often claim
Middle Easterners hate Americans because of our
freedom, culture, or religion, while scholars
argue it is primarily U.S. foreign policy that
causes antipathy. However, surveys administered
in the Middle East provide evidence that Middle
Easterners have a more positive view of Western
European countries than the United States. This
would seem to disprove the theory that Middle
Easterners hate America because of American
freedom or religion, because Western European
countries have similar religions, culture, and
political rights and liberties to Americans.
There is a need for additional research into
political attitudes regarding the war in Iraq,
especially in Middle Eastern countries that are
not always open to survey research because of
government suppression.

• Methodology
• This study administered an anonymous survey
  posing a number of demographic and foreign policy
  questions that related directly to the war in
  Iraq.
• Three groups of students were surveyed
• 242 American students survey administered to
  Central Michigan University students in a variety
  of courses
• 473 Middle Eastern students survey administered
  to Middle Eastern students studying at American
  University in Cairo, Egypt
• 11 Middle Eastern students residing in the United
  States survey administered through an online
  surveying website
• After the survey data was collected it was
  analysed and tested for statistical significance
  using SPSS. All the differences demonstrated in
  the graphs below were statistically significant
  (chi-squared of .05 or smaller).

Results The more liberal a student, the more
disapproving they were towards specific U.S.
foreign policies regarding the war in Iraq. A
large number of American students, regardless of
ideology, disagreed with the statement, the
United States has the responsibility to make the
world safe for democracy. Middle Eastern
students strongly disagreed with a number of U.S.
foreign policy questions in many cases, not a
single Middle Eastern student strongly agreed
with a number of key U.S. foreign policies. The
attitudes of Middle Eastern students residing in
America were more negative than the attitudes of
Middle Eastern students living in the Middle
East. Middle Eastern students living in the
United States believed that religion had a large
impact on U.S. foreign policy, while Middle
Easterners from the Middle East did not.

Conclusion This study shows a large gap between
the attitudes of U.S. and Middle Eastern students
towards U.S. foreign policy regarding the War in
Iraq. While the results support two hypotheses
there are two potential limitations. First the
results could be skewed because the groups
surveyed were relatively homogenous. Second, the
number of Middle Eastern students currently
residing in the United States was limited. The
need for further research into attitudes towards
the U.S. foreign policy is needed now more than
ever. Shared interests between countries in the
Middle East and America will force the countries
to interact. If the people of each region can
better understand the attitudes of one another
there is a better chance of improved relations.

• Goal
• Use original survey data to identify differences
  in opinion between United States and Middle
  Eastern college students in relation to specific
  aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
• Hypotheses
• 1. The more liberal a student the more likely he
  or she will have a pejorative view of U.S.
  foreign policy
• 2. Middle Eastern students will view specific
  aspects of U.S. foreign policy in a much more
  negative light than U.S. students
• 3. Middle Eastern students living in America will
  have a more positive view of U.S. foreign policy

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Ronald
E. McNair Program, the Central Michigan
University Honors Program, and Dr. Chris Owens
Dr. Moataz Fattah for all of their guidance and
support.