Americans Supportive but Jittery Over U.S. Role

Americans view the prospect of U.S. military engagement in the Middle East with a mix of skepticism, frustration, confusion and outright fear, according to interviews and a national survey by the Washington Post and ABC News.

Despite this anxiety, there is broad initial support across the country for the decision by President Bush to dispatch troops to the region. The Post-ABC poll found that nearly three out of four people questioned said they approved of sending troops to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

But the survey and individual interviews indicate that the support was often offered warily.

For many of those questioned, the first instinct was not to rally ‘round the flag, but to ponder why America had reacquired its thirst for Persian Gulf oil so quickly after the oil shocks of the 1970s; to brood over why more countries haven’t leaped to the defense of Saudi Arabia, and to draw edgy analogies to the Cuban missile crisis or the Vietnam War.

“I’m incredibly nervous--I just don’t have a good, confident feeling about this,” said Barbara Humphrey, a planner for the city of Syracuse, N.Y.

The events of the past few days, she said, reminded her of the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis. “I remember going to sleep that night sure I was going to wake up to the sound of air raids--this has a little bit of that same air of unreality.”

Humphrey encapsulated the ambivalence toward the crisis felt by many: “How can you compare a life to the flow of oil? On the other hand, if the flow of oil were to stop, it might cost even more lives down the road.”

Her sentiments mirror the nation’s anxiety about the course Bush has charted in the Middle East--a path that six out of 10 persons interviewed in the Post-ABC News survey predicted would lead to war with Iraq.

Most of the 769 people questioned Wednesday said they would support going to war with Iraq to force its army out of Kuwait. But public support is far from overwhelming; four out of 10 said the United States “should not get involved in a land war in the Middle East even if Iraq’s invasion means that Iraq permanently controls Kuwait.”

The survey also found that a majority opposes an invasion of Iraq. Most of those questioned also opposed a preemptive strike by U.S. forces. And a majority opposed air strikes against military bases within the country.

For most Americans, the Iraq crisis could not have happened at a worse time. With the national economy struggling, many now fear that increases in the price of oil could push the country into recession.

The Post-ABC Poll found that 86% of those questioned expected the crisis to have a negative impact on the economy, with 39% predicting that it would have a “major negative impact.”