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Pakistanis resist global favorite Obama

By Jason Motlagh (Contact) | Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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LAHORE, Pakistan | Barack Obama may be winning in the U.S. and most global popularity polls, but he's a loser in Pakistan.

Dozens of students interviewed at two top universities in this country's second-largest city, a cultural melting pot known for its liberal leanings, rejected Mr. Obama as "too aggressive," "irresponsible" and an "enemy of Muslims" whose stated policy toward insurgency-plagued areas would make a bad situation worse.

The anti-Obama sentiment stems from assertions on the campaign trail that the senator from Illinois, if elected president, would authorize U.S. forces to enter Pakistani territory to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda militants.

That the Democratic nominee is an overwhelming favorite abroad is not lost on the students, nor is the Muslim faith of his grandfather nor his Arabic middle name, Hussein.

But that is not enough to overcome concerns that an Obama administration would target and further destabilize Pakistan.

"The only country he's talking about bombing today is us," said Sher Afghen Malik, a political science major at the University of the Punjab, to the approving nods of classmates. "How could we possibly support him?"

Posters made by an Islamic student group have found their way onto campus walls, showing a map of Pakistan clutched by hairy, red-fanged claws wrapped in the American flag.

Khansa Qamar, a member of the school's model United Nations club, said her peers perceive Mr. Obama "as even more dangerous than George W. Bush" with regard to his stance on Pakistan.

By a show of hands, not one among two dozen students in one class supported the Democratic candidate. A little more than half said they prefer Sen. John McCain of Arizona because the Republican presidential candidate's statements on Pakistan have been less pointed.

Mr. Obama has stressed that he is not calling for an invasion of Pakistan, but restated in the second presidential debate on Oct. 7 that if its government is "unable or unwilling to hunt down [Osama] bin Laden and take him out, then we should."