NEARLY three years after President Joe Biden took office vowing "America is back", the country's international image is taking a beating as his administration backs Israel in its war with Hamas.
In one step back from the newfound isolation, the United States on Friday, after painstaking negotiations, let through a United Nations Security Council resolution on humanitarian aid for the beleaguered Gaza Strip, after vetoing two earlier calls to halt the fighting.
But the US still remained apart from some of its closest allies — Britain, France and Japan — which backed the resolution. The US abstained, joined only by Russia.
A week earlier in the full UN General Assembly, the US was joined by only two European partners, Austria and the Czech Republic, and none of its Asian allies in voting against a nonbinding ceasefire call in the war triggered by an Oct 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
Unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, who unreservedly backed Israel, Biden has openly voiced frustration over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's failure to protect Gaza civilians, even as the US continues to ensure military provisions and diplomatic protection.
Biden administration officials say their behind-the-scenes pressure has borne fruit, with Israel budging on letting in fuel, restoring Internet access and opening crossings into Gaza.
But with images proliferating of Gaza's suffering, the storyline that Biden is "hugging Netanyahu close, and then pressing him hard quietly, worked for about a week", Vinjamuri said.
A survey of six Arab publics last month showed that just seven per cent believed the US played a positive role in the war, said Munqith Dagher, who is Middle East director of Gallup International.
Washington's reputation has severely deteriorated in the Arab world since the Iraq invasion two decades ago, but until recently,
15 to 30 per cent still viewed the US favourably, said Dagher, who founded the Al Mustakilla research group in Iraq.
He said the US "trademark" represented "many good things, especially for intellectuals and middle classes, like democracy, human rights (and) freedom of speech", but "Gaza took out the last leaf, as they say".
Social media has brought unfiltered scenes from Gaza to Arab publics, showing Washington's "total bias towards the Israelis and denial of the human rights of Palestinians", he said.
Dagher said polling showed the main beneficiaries in Arab opinion have been China, Russia and, most strikingly, Iran, which has historic tensions with the Arab world, but, unique among regional governments, has championed Hamas.
But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged the world to focus its outrage on Hamas for attacking Israel, killing 1,200.
Israel has responded with a relentless air and ground campaign that Gaza authorities say has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Governments "want to work with us and are looking for American leadership in this crisis — even countries that may disagree with us on certain issues", Blinken told reporters on Wednesday.
China has stepped up regional diplomacy, but the Biden administration has sought to call its bluff, urging Beijing to use its influence with Teheran to halt attacks on commercial vessels by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
While China has little security apparatus in the Middle East, the US responded to Houthi attacks by sending an aircraft carrier and setting up a coalition of countries to protect vital shipping lanes.
Brian Katulis, vice-president of policy at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the Biden administration, while aware of public anger, was prioritising a "pragmatic" solution that addresses the threat of Hamas rather than a "symbolic" call for a ceasefire.
Many Arab nations that denounce US foreign policy were "the ones secured in part by the security umbrella the US provides", Katulis said.
But then most European policymakers, when it comes to the US, still think first of Biden's robust support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House in London.
"How it's playing right now in the rest of the world is that the US cares about Israelis, cares about Ukrainians and really doesn't care about brown people.
"Unfortunately, that's the kind of narrative that's taken off."
The writer is from AFP