Many pundits refused to believe last week’s Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll that found 51 percent of Americans support the U.S. role in the Iraq war.
(Just two weeks earlier, CNN-Opinion Research had reported 61 percent opposed and only 35 percent favored “the U.S. war.”)
Now the new USA Today-Gallup poll comes up with a finding similar to Fox News-Opinion Dynamics’. Gallup did not ask, “Do you support or oppose the U.S. war in Iraq?” as Opinion Dynamics did, but Gallup did ask:
In view of the developments since we first sent our troops to Iraq, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?
49-49 split. To this question, 1,003 Americans on Sept. 15-17 answered 49 percent, yes, a mistake; and 49 percent, no, not a mistake.
It was the first time since December that a majority of Americans did not call the war a mistake. It was the first time since July 2005 that the “not a mistake” percentage was this high. (It was down to 39 percent last September.)
Despite rising bloodshed in Iraq and the constant political carping about it at home, about half of Americans back the continued fight to give Iraq’s infant democracy a chance to stand on its own.
No cut and run. Gallup also asked whether the U.S. should withdraw troops immediately, or within 12 months, or take as many years as needed to withdraw.
Compared to nearly a year ago, fewer Americans want to withdraw immediately or within a year. Just 17 percent want an immediate pull-out. And 31 percent more want a pull-out within a year. (42 percent say take as many years as needed, and 9 percent more say send more troops.)
In a similar Nov. 11-13, 2005, poll, Gallup found that 19 percent of Americans wanted an immediate U.S. withdrawal from the Iraq war. And 33 percent wanted a withdrawal over the next year. That’s when newspapers added the two numbers and misleadingly blared, “52% of Americans back withdrawal.”
No deadline yet. Those hoping last year for a U.S. pull-out this year weren’t setting a deadline, as the newest poll clearly proves. Most Americans -- 73 percent -- still are willing to give the battle at least another year to succeed.
Where does the war get its support? First, it comes from the knowledge that, if Iraq can become a stable, independent democracy, it won’t return to the aggressive and repressive behavior that forced the U.S. to send troops in the first place.
No doubt the falling price of gasoline also makes it easier to support a project as unselfish as the liberation of a foreign nation. Over most of the last year, $3-a-gallon gasoline raised anger and anxiety. With prices dropping in the last month to around $2.50 a gallon, the economic picture looks more secure.
‘Increasingly popular war.’ It will be interesting to watch the news stories now. Remember all those articles with the words “increasingly unpopular war”? Will we see reports now with the words “increasingly popular war”?
Frank Warner
Update, Oct. 10, 2006: OK, it’s safe to call the U.S. role in the Iraq war ‘increasingly unpopular’ again.
Update, March 27, 2007: From rock bottom, U.S. confidence rises in Iraq war role.
[With U.S. forces taking relatively high numbers of casualties in Baghdad in October 2006, with the Democrats taking Congress with no Iraq plan in November, and with the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in response to the election, U.S. confidence in Iraq war success plummetted until February 2007. In March 2007, two months into the U.S. troop "surge," public confidence rose slightly again.]
SEE ALSO: Did I imagine news stories with the phrase “increasingly unpopular Iraq war”? It turns out, I didn’t.
SEE ALSO: Remember when Bob Woodward said the Saudis would reduce oil prices for the 2004 election?
Most Americans support a diplomatic resolution and ending of the war and do not want any more loss of human life, regardless of nationality.
That is how I see Americans "supporting" the war.
Not, as a support of continued, oppressive nationalism.
Posted by: Sean Dorman | October 10, 2006 at 12:31 PM