In the aftermath of the recent set of Wikileaks revelations, it will probably not come as a surprise that when it comes to the US presidential election, citizens of Saudi Arabia have a clear favorite. As Al Arabiya reports, an opinion poll by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Washington and that included nine Arab countries revealed that 68% of the Saudis prefer that Hillary Clinton wins the presidential elections while 46% thought Donald Trump was bad.
The nine countries included Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Jordan, Palestine (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), Saudi Arabia and Tunisia and an average of 400 people from each country participated in the questionnaire. It was not immediately clear whether the poll was oversampled to favor democrats.
Asked which of the candidates will positively influence the US policy towards the Arab region, 65% of the Saudis said Clinton’s victory will positively impact the Arab region. Considering that according to recent WaPo report, the US foreign policy neo-con “elites” are eagerly awaiting for the “pacifist” Obama to leave to usher in an expansion of overseas wars under Hillary Clinton, this suggests that to the local population more war equates with “positive influence”, but at least Saudi Arabia will benefit from more US military equipment and US loans with which to purchase it.
The Arab public opinion prefers Clinton’s win by 66% while 11% prefer Trump’s victory. The highest percentage in support of Clinton winning the presidency was in Morocco and Tunisia while the least percentage in favor of Clinton’s victory was in Palestine and Iraq. Meanwhile, the highest percentage in favor of Trump winning was in Iraq and Egypt.
Asked about the issues which the upcoming American president must focus on, those interviewed by the poll said the first priority was not intervening in Arab countries’ affairs. In which case virtually all respondents, not only those who picked Hillary, will be disappointed.
Other priorities included combating ISIS, resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, resolving the Syrian crisis and resolving the crisis in Yemen. The most likely outcome, however, from a Clinton presidency is more of the same middle-eastern chaos that marked Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State.
via http://ift.tt/2fA5JfK Tyler Durden