ABSTRACT
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, therewas an outpouring of goodwill toward the USA from abroad. This sympathy for the USA dissipated quickly, however, as public opinion around the world registered its disapproval of the George W. Bush administration’s essentially unilateral decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, and the policies it employed in prosecuting the so-called War on Terror – including torture, renditions and the incarceration of suspected terrorists at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The backlash of world public opinion against the USA during the Bush administration became a major foreign policy issue during the 2008 campaign.
