US getting unpopular across the globe

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From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK June 17: The United States has never been so unpopular across the globe as it is now, media analysts and former White House and State Department officials say.
The major blow to America's image abroad has been dealt by the Bush White House and its policy of unilateralism and go it alone. America's European allies do not take everything for granted that comes from President Bush himself. President Bush pledged to work for reducing the emission of the greenhouse gases in half by 2050 and consider Russian proposal for constructing jointly defence shield against missile strikes.
The US has never followed up its international pledges with actions on the ground. This has made the allies wary of the US intention. Growing skepticism in Europe and Middle-East threatens to isolate US. The US gave scant respect to its pledges.
Over the past six years foreign leaders largely held their tongues when Washington discarded international treaties. But with anti-American sentiments rising globally, European leaders are no longer keeping their frustration to themselves, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says. There is a cumulative sense abroad that the US, turned its back on multilateral pact after another WSJ quoted Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations as saying. That means foreign government simply aren't inclined to work with the US, the way they used in the past Kupchan asserted.
Vladimir Putin has been the most strident critic accusing the US of triggering a new round of arms race by pulling out of the old ABM treaty which limited the use of the anti-ballistic missiles. Germany and Britain are unhappy because the US refused to sign the Kyoto agreement on emission of carbon dioxide.
Many of the agreements the White House discarded over the past six years were unknown to Americans and no ripples were witnessed in the US but it received serious attention abroad, a former state department official Price Floyd said. Floyd stepped down from his state department job after getting tired of trying to persuade other public affairs officials that the source of American unpopularity is its action not its words.
Senior state department officials trying to sell the US foreign policy talked to over 3200 foreign journalists but with very little impact. More strident the US officials were in defending government policies more unpopular the US became around the world. Marketing is not a problem but the product itself is not acceptable worldwide, Floyd said. "Our actions and our words don't match up."
President Bush and his close aides have acknowledged that the US is less popular than it once was. The US invasion of Iraq on wrong premises has substantially damaged its image. Even such staunch ally like Saudi Arabia called the US mission as illegal occupation of Iraq. Iran will be a crucial test.
The US has been working with the UN and its European allies on a diplomatic solution of Iran's nuclear ambition. Bush is being prodded by the hawks to take stern action against Iran. The foreign governments are not certain how committed the US is to find a diplomatic solution.
The Guantanamo Bay prison cell where hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban activists are being held without any trial is another sore point in the US foreign policy. The US has come under blistering attack as violaters of human rights. The US Secretary of State during Bush's first term Colin Powell said the cell has tarnished world's perception of the US.
"Left to myself I would have closed the down the camp," Powell said. Israel occupies a major chunk of the US foreign policy. This circumvents manoeuvrability of the State Department. The Middle-East is world's boiling pot now. Here US is largely handicapped in taking independent stand lest it offends Israel.