Nate Silver would probably take issue with this number:
40 percent of Iraqis would have Washington bomb Iran to halt its nuclear weapons programme, while more than half of all Arabs share the US view that a nuclear-armed Tehran is intolerable.
Just 60 percent of those surveyed say Obama will be "a better president" than Bush (apparently Arabs are a little more circumspect than the American media) and "little more than a third believe he can turn the US into a 'force for good.'" To hear the New York Times and the Associated Press tell it, Obama's election turned the entire Arab world upside down -- our enemies "suffered a defeat in the global war of ideas with Mr. Obama's election" the Times said. Perhaps an al Qaeda defeat in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, accompanied by prosperity, freedom, and democracy for the people of those two countries, would do more to convince the Arab world of America's good intentions than the feel-good election of a man with a Muslim middle name as President of the United States.
But for a quick popularity boost in the Arab world, he can always bomb Iran.
