Michelle Obama tops Hillary Clinton as America's most admired woman, Melania Trump comes distant fourth

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton's 17-year run as the woman Americans admire most is over. Another former First Lady, Michelle Obama, has deposed Clinton as America's most admired woman, according to a Gallup poll published on Thursday.

Former president Barack Obama was named the man Americans admire most for the 11th year in a row, Gallup said.

President Donald Trump finished second in the poll for the fourth year in a row.

Gallup has conducted the annual poll every year since 1946 with the exception of 1976.

Fifteen per cent of the 1,025 Americans polled said the woman they admire most is Michelle Obama, who is currently on a tour promoting her book "Becoming."

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey was second with five per cent followed by Hillary Clinton and First Lady Melania Trump with four per cent.

Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and a former US senator and secretary of state, has topped the list 22 times including the past 17 years in a row.

Nineteen per cent of those polled said Barack Obama was the man they admired most.

Trump was second with 13 per cent followed by former president George W Bush and Pope Francis, who were tied with two per cent.

Gallup said the survey conducted December 3-12 had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump in his first visit to Iraq on Wednesday said that America cannot be the policeman of the world and urged countries to share responsibilities. Trump also defended his decision to pull American troops out of war-torn Syria. "The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world," Trump told reporters at a military base west of Baghdad, soon after he addressed American soldiers. Accompanied by First Lady Melania this was Donald Trump’s first visit to Iraq. Trump vowed for a "harsh response" from his administration if there was to be another terrorist attack on America.

"If anything should happen at all, nobody will ever have suffered the consequences they had suffered," Trump told American troops at a military base west of Baghdad.