Most Americans want less foreign involvement, polls show

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-foreign-policy-isolation-20121025,0,4401271.story

Most Americans want less foreign involvement, polls show
President Obama and Mitt Romney agreed in the last debate that the U.S. must expand its world leadership role. But after two wars and a recession, most residents are skeptical of the benefits.
By Paul Richter, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — President Obama and Mitt Romney agreed strongly in their third and final debate that the United States needed to vigorously expand its leadership role in a dangerous world, pressing its economic interests, using its military when necessary and spreading its values.

But most Americans apparently don't agree.

Polls show that after a decade of two wars and a brutal recession, most Americans have grown deeply skeptical of the benefits of the global leadership role that the president and the Republican challenger, backed by the foreign policy establishment, insist is the nation's wisest course and destiny.

Though few Americans want to turn their backs on global crises, they are increasingly doubtful that an America that's always in the lead benefits them or the rest of the world, the polls show.

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1. Democrats and independents want US less involved in Middle East political change

More than six-in-ten (63%) say they think the U.S. should be less involved with changes of leadership in the Middle East, compared with just 23% who say the U.S. should be more involved.

Although Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to favor greater involvement, just 34% of Republicans advocate this (compared with 20% of Democrats and 19% of independents).

http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/18/on-eve-of-foreign-debate-growing-pessimism-about-arab-spring-aftermath/