Obama’s Iraq policy gains bipartisan support, polls show

Majorities of Republicans and Democrats say they support President Obama’s plan for attacking Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, a rare bit of bipartisan backing for the president, two new polls show.

Six in 10 Democrats and a slightly larger share of Republicans said they backed Obama’s plan, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Monday.

Self-identified independents were more skeptical, but overall, Americans supported Obama’s plan by 53% to 29%, with 19% unsure, the poll found.

The broad support comes despite public doubts that attacking the Islamic State organization would make America safer.

Fewer than 1 in 5 of those surveyed said they thought U.S. military action would make the country safer from a terrorist attack, while about one-third said they thought the U.S.-led campaign would increase the chances of an attack.

The plurality, 4 in 10, said they did not believe the campaign would affect the chances of a terrorist attack one way or the other.

Obama’s fellow Democrats were particularly likely to say the risk of terrorist attacks would increase as a result of the new strategy, with nearly 4 in 10 expressing that view.

Republicans divided almost equally on whether a terrorist attack would be more or less likely, with about one-quarter taking each position. In both parties, about 4 in 10 said they expected no effect.

Although partisans on both sides back the policy, they differed on what concerns them most about it.

Overall, the public split evenly on the question of whether they were more concerned that the U.S. military action would “go too far in getting involved in the situation” or that it would “not go far enough in stopping the Islamic militants.” Just over 4 in 10 of those polled took each side.

Concern about going “too far” has waned since mid-August, when Pew found a majority of the public expressing that concern and about one-third worried about not going far enough.

But a clear partisan split exists on the question, with about two-thirds of Republicans saying they worried the U.S. military action will not go far enough and a majority of Democrats saying their greater fear is the action will go too far.

The poll also found that the public was closely following news about the Islamic State militants, with 37% of respondents saying they were “very closely” following reports on the subject -- an unusually high number for a foreign policy issue short of a full-blown war with numerous U.S. casualties.

By comparison, 23% said they were closely following news about Russia and Ukraine, 21% reported a similar level of interest in the NFL’s suspension of Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice after video that showed him punching his fiancee became public, and 14% said they were closely following news of the midterm congressional elections.

The Pew survey, conducted Thursday through Sunday among 1,003 U.S. adults, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Separately, an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg survey found that 62% of voters supported Obama’s policy, compared with 22% opposed, although most expressed only limited confidence that it could succeed.

Only 17% said they had a “great deal” of confidence that the U.S. would be able to “accomplish the goals” Obama had set out, while 11% said they had “quite a bit” of confidence, 37% had “just some” and 31% had “very little.”

That poll, conducted among 554 registered voters, had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points

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