U.S. Public Attitudes And The U.S. War In Iraq

[Algorem]

Helena Cobban Al-Hayat 2005/04/16

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/commentators/04-2005/Article-20050416-4ab1c0f9-c0a8-10ed-001a-141116039188/story.html

How are the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration's broad campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world affecting President Bush's approval ratings?

The best answers I can find to these two questions are "probably a little bit badly" (Iraq) and "not very much at all" (democratization). Actually, the president's overall approval ratings, as measured in nationwide opinion polls undertaken by the Gallup company in early April were still almost exactly the same as they were back at the time of his election last November: hovering near 50%. There was a clear difference between that rating and the one that Gallup and CNN discovered (also in early April) that asked specifically what people thought of Bush's handling of Iraq. On that issue, only 43% said they approved of Bush's policy, while 54% said they disapproved.

It is harder to find any data on Americans' views of the Bush policy on democratization, since none of the major pollsters have been asking questions about that. But in one well-run poll that I read recently, I noted that only 31% of Americans said they thought that "spreading democracy around the world" should actually be a key goal of U.S. foreign policy. (They were much more concerned about nuclear weapons, terrorism, and other international issues.)

It can be very informative to go back and track some of the polling figures throughout the 51 months of Bush's presidency so far. Regarding his handling of Iraq, Gallup's data only goes back as far as October 2002, the time when "Iraq" first became a big, controversial issue within the U.S. political scene. Back then, disapproval of Bush's handling of the Iraq issue was at around 40%. Disapproval went down sharply in early April 2003-to 21%. That was not surprising: it was the first flush of "victory" after the fall of Saddam's regime; and back at the beginning of the war the U.S. public showed an understandable desire to "rally round the flag". Disapproval climbed pretty steadily throughout 2003, to a high of 54% during the multiple crises of early November 2003-which was about the time most Americans understood that the "victory" in Iraq would not be nearly as easy as they had imagined, and that the U.S. troops there might get bogged down for a long time...