Poll Finds Waning Faith in Military Interventions

By Jim Lobe

09/08/06 "IPS" -- -- WASHINGTON - Five years after September 11, 2001, Americans are considerably less enthusiastic about projecting military power abroad, according to a major new survey, the first of a spate of polls that are likely to be released in the run-up to Monday's fifth anniversary of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington, found that Republicans remained substantially more supportive of military deployments overseas than either Democrats or independents, who also believe


- by 3-1 - that the United States has lost respect in the world over the past few years.

The survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected adults also found that nearly half (46%) of the respondents consider US support for Israel a "major reason" for the rise in anti-US sentiment around the world, a significant increase since Pew last posed the question 10 months ago.

Significantly, that view was held by similar percentages of self-described Republicans and Democrats who, on most other foreign-policy questions, showed wide partisan differences.

The survey, however, was conducted from August 9-13, just before the ceasefire that ended the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, when international pressure on Washington to persuade the Jewish state to stop its bombing campaign in Lebanon was at its height.

Publication of the Pew survey coincided with the release of a second poll on Wednesday by CNN that found widespread skepticism over claims by the administration of President George W Bush that the US is making progress in the war in Iraq and that the war is related to the larger "global war on terrorism" launched after September 11.

Only one in four respondents in that poll, which was conducted from August 30 to September 2, thought that Washington and its allies were winning the war, compared with 13% who said the insurgents were winning and 62% who said the war was in essence stalemated.

Despite repeated and increasingly frequent assertions by Bush that the war in Iraq has become the "central front" in the "war on terrorism", a majority of 53% said it was "an entirely separate military action". A larger majority of 58% said they opposed the war, compared with 39% who said they favored it - a margin that has not changed substantially over recent months.

The most interesting finding of the latest Pew poll appeared to be the growing public disillusionment with US military intervention.

By 45% versus 32%, respondents said they believed that the most effective way to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks on the US was to "decrease" rather than "increase" Washington's military presence abroad.

As noted in an accompanying analysis by the Pew Center, that finding marks a "stark reversal" from the public's position on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. At that time, a plurality of 48% of the public said expanding US military deployments overseas was the best way to protect against future attacks, while 29% called for reducing such commitments.

Similarly, according to the new survey, 43% of respondents said they believed that "military strikes" against nations that were trying to develop nuclear weapons was a very important way to reduce future terrorism - a reduction of 15 percentage points compared with a Pew survey taken in October 2002 when Bush was trying to win congressional approval for a resolution authorizing him to take military action against Iraq.

The new survey also suggested a more general desire to reduce US involvement in the Middle East compared with four years ago. Asked to identify what would be a "very important" step in reducing terrorism, attacking nuclear facilities was rated the highest (58%) in a group of five options. It was followed by increasing defense spending and decreasing dependence on Mideast oil (53%) and "not get[ting] involved in other countries' problems" (32%).

In the most recent poll, however, attacking nuclear facilities ranked third, far behind decreasing dependence on Mideast oil (67%) and increasing defense spending (52%), and just two points ahead of the non-involvement option, which rose (41%).

The increase in what some would describe as "isolationist" sentiment echoed a similar finding in another poll conducted by Pew and the Council on Foreign Relations last November. Forty-two percent of respondents said they believed Washington should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own", compared with only 30% who took that position in December 2002.

Democrats and independents account for much of these changes. In the summer of 2002, for example, Democrats by an eight-point margin favored an increased military presence overseas. They now favor a diminished presence by nearly 3-1. Support for a decreased military presence among independents has also dropped sharply, by some 17 percentage points, to a 49% plurality.

On the question of why the US has lost support around the world, more than two-thirds of respondents identified a "major reason" as the Iraq war; 58% cited "America's wealth and power"; 49% "the US-led war on terror"; and 46% "US support for Israel".

Democrats were significantly more likely than Republicans to cite the Iraq war and the "war on terrorism", while Republicans were more likely to cite "America's wealth and power".

The survey also found a gradual increase in the view that the September 11 attacks signified the beginning of a major conflict between the West and the Islamic world. In October 2001, for example, only 28% of respondents agreed with that view; in August 2002, 35% expressed agreement; and, in the most recent poll, 40% took that position.

Conversely, the percentage of those who agreed with the proposition that September 11 represented only a conflict with a "small, radical group" has fallen from 63% to 49% over the same five-year period.

Still, 47% of respondents said the September 11 attacks were equal in seriousness to the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that launched the US into World War II, while 35% said they were "more serious". Younger respondents, however, were significantly more likely to say they were "more serious" than older respondents.

Copyright - Inter Press Service