START announces the release of initial findings from public opinion surveys from Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Morocco, conducted in partnership with the Program on International Policy Attittudes and its WorldPublicOpinion.org project. The report provides comparative findings from these four countries on questions related to:
- the acceptability of terrorist attacks on civilians in general and Americans in particular,
- al Qaeda's goals such as driving the US out of Muslim countries, imposing Sharia, and creating a new Caliphate,
- attacks on US troops based in Muslim countries,
- US support for the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan,
- perceptions of US foreign policy goals,
- the nature of the conflict between Islam and the West, and
- democracy and globalization.
This report represents the first in a series of reports and analyses that START researchers will produce based upon these surveys to examine a range of factors that impact public opinion among the populations in the four countries.