CBS News and The New York Times released a poll Monday showing that 50% of Americans feel that the United States does not have a responsibility to do something about the recent violence in Iraq. Meanwhile, 42%, and a majority of Republicans, feel that the United States should intervene and provide assistance to Iraq to help curb the violence. When drilling further down into the results of the poll, we see that not only do Americans support the President’s response so far to this ongoing crisis in Iraq, but that a number of respondents feel that the President should do even less to assist Iraq. Essentially, this poll confirms that the American public is still quite war weary and is not prepared to get involved in yet another Middle East skirmish.
As one would expect from a poll of this nature, there were partisan divides aplenty. The majority of Democrats (51%) and independents (55%) feel that America does not have any responsibility to end the violence in Iraq. Meanwhile, 52% of Republicans feel that America needs to intervene. When asked of President Obama’s handling of the situation in Iraq, a plurality of respondents (41%) stated that Obama’s response was the right amount. Meanwhile, 29% felt that Obama should do more while 22% stated that the President should actually do less than he is doing now.
Only 13% of Democrats and 29% of independents said that the President should do more to help Iraq. On the other hand, 53% of Republicans responded that they want the President to further intervene and provide more assistance to Iraq. Only 19% of Republicans felt that the President’s response so far has been appropriate, while 63% of Democrats and 37% of independents felt the President has done the right thing so far. 21% of Republicans, 19% of Democrats and 25% of independents stated that the President should actually be doing less, revealing a substantial isolationist subsection across the partisan divide.
Overall, the American public still does not have an appetite for sending thousands of troops into harm’s way. By looking into these poll results, we see that 63% of Americans feel the President’s very limited actions towards providing assistance to Iraq is the right approach or perhaps even too much. That reveals a level of war weariness in this country that will be very difficult to overcome. We saw the level of dissatisfaction among the American people when the just the discussion of military intervention in Syria took place last year. That level is resistance is still being felt right now.
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