Iraq and Public Opinion: The Troops Come Home
More than eight years after U.S. troops entered Iraq, the United States military – with the exception of a few troops connected with the U.S. Embassy – will leave the country by the end of 2011.
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More than eight years after U.S. troops entered Iraq, the United States military – with the exception of a few troops connected with the U.S. Embassy – will leave the country by the end of 2011.
In the U.S. and around the globe, the spread of nuclear weapons is seen as a major threat, but not overwhelmingly so. Those concerned, however, look to the U.S. for leadership.
The contrast between attitudes toward military involvement in Afghanistan and Iran fits into a temporal pattern. Americans generally like their wars to be successful or short — and ideally both.
As Obama weighs difficult choices in Afghanistan, the public also appears to be finding it difficult to judge the merits of different options for expanding, maintaining or contracting the U.S. effort on that front.
Soaring concern about the economy has displaced the Iraq War as the top priority issue among voters. Ambivalent and contradictory public opinions further complicate the role that the conflict will play in the November election.
A look at the course of opinions about the Iraq war over the past few years suggests that two crucial but opposing factors in U.S. thinking will likely shape the public’s response to the Petraeus report.
To many observers the most obvious parallel between the two conflicts is that, after early public support, disillusionment mounted as hostilities dragged on. But while the overall trajectory is similar, an important political difference distinguishes public attitudes toward the two wars.
While public opinion about the war in Iraq has followed a path not unlike that charted during the Vietnam War, one important disparity stands out: attitudes toward the military.
Those with close contacts to servicemembers in Iraq or Afghanistan tend to be more supportive of the Iraq war but their differences with those who are not closely connected are relatively modest.
Opinion surveys find much in the way of public frustration, but little in the way of direction on the international and military front.
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