MOSCOW, August 2 (RIA Novosti) – Obama's foreign policy approval rating has slid to its lowest point. Although Americans used to consider Washington's global role as positive and significant, the latest survey conducted by the Associated Press-GfK poll has indicated the growing discontent with Obama's international leadership among the US citizens.
"Nero fiddled while Rome burned. On Saturday, President Obama played golf while his foreign policy, and that of the nation he leads, was going up in smoke. Literally," notes pessimistically the Los Angeles Times. The neoconservatives' mouthpiece, the Heritage Foundation, calls the US president "a lackluster commander-in-chief with an empty foreign policy vision."
The increasing controversy is being sparked by Obama's "inability" to handle the situation in Ukraine and stop the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza. According to the AP-GfK poll, 60 percent of respondents are discontent with the Obama's decision-making regarding the Hamas-Israeli conflict while 57 percent disapprove the White House's policy in Ukraine. On the whole, the poll has found that only 43 percent are satisfied with Obama's foreign policy course. Poll figures largely coincide with results of previous AP-GfK surveys conducted in March and May. It should be noted that Obama's job performance approval rating has dropped to 40 percent as well.
The significant downgrade of Obama's foreign policy approval rating from the 49 percent mark was registered during the March poll, carried out by AP-GfK after Crimea had officially reunited with the Russian Federation.
"The problem is saying something and not doing anything – making grandiose threats and never following any of them up," said Dwight Miller, 71, Texas, cited by the Associated Press.
"I'd like to see him get more involved on a humanitarian basis in more areas, not military support – no financial support, no weapons – but strictly humanitarian aid," another interviewee told AP.
Obama would leave the world "a more dangerous place" for the person who would succeed him, noted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel as quoted by AP.
