Americans barely trust Obama on Afghanistan
By Kyle Spector
Monday, July 19, 2010 - 10:51 AM
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Recent polls showing pessimism about U.S. prospects in Afghanistan seem to suggest that Barack Obama has lost the United States' support for the war there. However, general exhaustion from years of war and specific support for Obama's Afghanistan strategy should not be so easily conflated. A careful reading of the polling data on Afghanistan shows that while the public is weary, they haven't yet given up on the mission or Obama's redefined strategy...yet.
The U.S. public has significant doubts about Afghanistan. After a decade of war, U.S. citizens just aren't sure that the investment of time, energy and resources will pay off. When asked to in early June to consider whether the war in Afghanistan was worth fighting (given all of the costs to the U.S. versus the benefits) 44 percent of those polled believed it was worth it, 53 percent did not. In the same ABC News/Washington Post poll, only a slight majority (by 3 points) believed the U.S. was winning the war in Afghanistan. A more recent Newsweek poll found that just 26 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is winning the war and 46 percent think the U.S. is losing -- a 20 point margin. With June being the deadliest month ever for foreign forces in Afghanistan, the public has reason to think that the U.S. effort has lost its momentum.
At the moment, there is also little hope among the public for a successful conclusion to the conflict in Afghanistan. When asked if it is even possible to achieve stability in Afghanistan and the region, only 33 percent of those surveyed said yes.
Yet, for all of the pessimism about the war in general, the public isn't ready to give up on its commander-in-chief. In poll after poll, the United States still approves of Obama's handling of Afghanistan and gives high marks to his specific policies. In polling done by Third Way and Democracy Corps in February and May, the president gets much higher marks on his handling of Afghanistan than he does for his general approval rating (or even on domestic issues, such as the economy). More recent national polling shows that Obama maintains a five or six-point edge on his Afghanistan approval rating (46-41, 50-44).
Even more telling than generic approval ratings is whether the public supports the president's strategy in Afghanistan. They do. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 58 percent support the president's timetable to begin withdrawing some troops in July 2011. And, although the question isn't asked as frequently, other polls found significant majorities believe in the mission in Afghanistan even as they see U.S. efforts hitting obstacles. Sixty-one percent believe that "eliminating the threat from terrorists operating from Afghanistan is a worthwhile goal for American troops to fight and possibly die for," and 76 percent believe what happens in Afghanistan matters to their security in the U.S.
This demonstrates that the public is of two minds -- they may not believe the war effort is going well, but they do believe in the mission.
Those surveyed also believe in the central principles of Obama's strategy in Afghanistan -- that our main goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and prevent their return to controlling Afghanistan. In Third Way-Democracy Corps polling, an articulation of this strategy and its tangible results in capturing or killing al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan resonated with 61 percent of the public. This includes a majority of independents and 86 percent of self-identified liberals. However, these are the same Americans who believe the U.S. is losing the war and won't be able to bring it to a successful conclusion. So, how can these totally contradictory opinions about our effort in Afghanistan co-exist?
One answer is that the U.S. public understands the president inherited a mess and is withholding final judgment until Obama has an adequate chance to see his more focused, better-resourced strategy succeed. Third Way polling suggests that the public is willing to listen and trust the president on Afghanistan when he clearly articulates the mission, strategy, and goals.
This willingness to trust the president is not everlasting. Just as the public soured on Bush's Iraq policy when there seemed to be no improvement and no exit, Obama faces approval ratings on Afghanistan hovering around 50 percent that are likely to drop off quickly unless the public sees tangible results from the president's strategy. Americans are following the stream of negative news out of Afghanistan, which will tighten the already-slim margins of support the president still receives on his Afghanistan policy. Clearly and consistently reminding the public of the reasons for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and the gains being made in taking the fight to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could go a long way in maintaining support for the president's strategy. Equally important will be communicating results and letting the public know that there is an endgame in Afghanistan that most could support: bringing U.S. troops home responsibly after neutralizing the terrorist threat.
Kyle Spector is a policy advisor in the National Security Program at Third Way, a left of center think tank in Washington, DC.
"There is no instance of a nation profiting from a prolonged war." Sun Tzu, Art of War, II
The US is pursuing the same "strategy" as the old Soviet Union: over expansion of empire, perpetual war leading to financial collapse.
US Afghan mission headed for failure
US mission in Afghanistan is doomed to fail no matter how much money, manpower and effort US pours in there as long as Obama continues Bush policy of mollycoddling Pakistan.
All American officers in southern Afghanistan know that they can not prevail in the ongoing military operations, unless Taliban strongholds across the Durand Line in North Waziristan and Baluchistan are neutralized. Adm Mullen and Gen Patraeus evidently do not want to acknowledge that hard options have to be considered if their soldiers are not to die at the hands of radicals, armed and trained across the Durand Line. This is where rubber meets the road for the famed General.
As Times of London dated 6/13/2010 reported on Matt Waldman’s report titled ‘The sun in the sky’ from London School of Economics, “support for the Afghan Taliban is ‘official Pakistani ISI policy’ and is backed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s civilian administration. Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude. There is thus a strong case that the ISI orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign in Afghanistan.”
The ISI is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees, claims the report. Thus US aid to bankrupt Pakistan finances the death of US/NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. So in a way, US is financing the death of its troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistani government issued its usual denials just as it had denied umpteen times the existence of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s ‘Quetta Shura Taliban (QST)’ in the provincial capital Quetta of Baluchistan. But General Stanley McChrystal called QST as the biggest threat to US Afghan mission in his report to President Obama in August, 2009.
The most breath-taking part of this sordid saga is that US is NOT holding Pakistan responsible for sheltering, protecting and supporting Haqqani’s HQN network and Mullah Omar’s QST network all these years while those networks have been causing daily deaths of US/NATO soldiers ever since 2002 even though Pakistan was SUPPOSED to have joined US fight against same Taliban back in 2001!
Can American CIA not know what Matt Waldman knows? How come Obama administration is continuing Bush’s mollycoddling of Pakistan with such incriminating evidence against Pakistan’s double game? How can US mission in Afghanistan succeed if Obama administration continues to ignore such Pakistani duplicity like Bush had done it before Obama?
Suresh, I love how you manage to fit that word in the last paragraph of every post.
It's a unique style point. If repetitive.
This poll isn't really accurate
Poll results are only as accurate and reliable as the poll themselves. So when a poll asks a very specific question, geared towards a specific answer, like "eliminating the threat from terrorists operating from Afghanistan is a worthwhile goal for American troops to fight and possibly die for," the poll itself doesn't really capture the real opinions of Americans. How can American citizens not respond positively to the question of eliminating terrorists? That's like asking an American if he/she likes democracy, or giving a fat kid the choice between a piece of cake and a carrot stick. Obviously he's going to choose the cake.
This is not to say that Third Way is a bad organization. Third Way has a great reputation in Washington D.C. But this poll is a little shaky. A real good question shouldn't introduce bias in order to sway a respondent towards a particular. All polling companies do this, of course, but that still doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
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Until Obama put the spotlight on Afghanistan, it was just 'that other war' in a country most Americans could not find on a map if they had to. Our media and politicians were too focused on the war in Iraq, the war of choice that we could have avoided altogether if we were smart enough.
The fact that the Taliban were resurgent in Afghanistan and had come back from their earlier defeat to pose a threat to the puppet government we installed there was little noted by the media and not really in the consciousness of the average US citizen until last year. The fact that people still may ask what we are really fighting for there, and what our goals are, shows that our leaders still cannot make a convincing case for prosecution of a war that is bound to become more costly from this time forward.
Hell, the majority of people in the US still believe that Saddam Hussein was the culprit behing 9-11. Getting these people to comprehend the stakes for us in Afghanistan and Pakistan would be a major undertaking, and I have not seen a President or candidate capable of doing so. Even a reputed master communicator like Obama cannot sell this war as anything other than a mission we need to pursue so we may avoid a humiliating defeat.
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