Mission accomplished. According to the new NEWSWEEK poll, Americans back the ISG’s recommendations by a two-to-one margin. In interviews with 1,000 adults done Dec. 6 and Dec. 7, 39 percent of Americans said they generally agree with the group’s 79 recommendations, while 20 percent said they disagree. (Twenty-six percent said, in effect: “Report, what report?”)
What is the new consensus? Nearly two out of three Americans (65 percent) concur with the Iraq Study Group that the U.S. should threaten to reduce economic and military aid to the Baghdad government unless it meets benchmarks for security and development. Fifty-seven percent believe Washington should reach out to its adversaries Iran and Syria in an effort to stabilize Iraq. And 61 percent believe Washington should launch a new and sustained effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That’s bad news for President George W. Bush since it’s unclear whether the new consensus has been adopted by the White House. Though the president called the Baker-Hamilton report “constructive,” in a press conference on Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s closest ally, the president signaled resistance to at least two of the key proposals: drawing down U.S. combat troops in Iraq by early 2008, and talking to Iran and Syria. “One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust and say it’s just not worth it,” said Bush, adding, “I believe we’ll prevail.”
That places the president in a distinct minority. According to the NEWSWEEK poll, more than two out of three Americans believe the United States is losing ground in Iraq (68 percent), versus 21 percent who say it is making progress—the most pessimistic assessment the NEWSWEEK poll has ever recorded. A near-record 53 percent believe invading Iraq was a mistake, compared to 39 percent who say it was the right course of action.
In fact, the public goes farther than the Baker-Hamilton report. Sixty-two percent of Americans want the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawal. And not in the distant future. Forty-eight percent of Americans want U.S. soldiers and Marines to come home now or within the next year. Add in the 19 percent who say they would support U.S. troops remaining in Iraq one to two years more and 67 percent of Americans say they would support keeping large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq for no more than another year or two.
Only 23 percent of Americas sound like the president, arguing that troops should stay in Iraq “as long as it takes to achieve U.S. goals,” the lowest percentage ever recorded in the NEWSWEEK poll.
One Baker-Hamilton recommendation that did not receive widespread support was the proposal that as the United States reduces the funds and the troops it sends to Iraq, Washington should increase economic and military support for Afghanistan. Only 43 percent of respondents agree; 44 percent disagree.
Perhaps President Bush figures after Democratic victories in the midterm elections, he has little left to lose following his “principles” as he told Fox News early this week. The NEWSWEEK poll supports that view: the president’s approval remains at a near-record low 32 percent and only 31 percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with the direction of the country. Sixty percent say they are dissatisfied.
But Bush isn’t completely alone in challenging the report either. Sen. John McCain called some of the ISG recommendations “a recipe that will lead to … our defeat in Iraq.” Perhaps the Arizona senator, an early front runner for the 2008 Republican nomination, is less concerned with today’s debate about how and when to get out of Iraq than with the 2008 debate. While a majority of Americans say the Iraq war was a mistake, 67 percent of Republicans still believe it was the right thing to do. One of their likely questions in the primaries that start just a little over a year from now: who lost Iraq?
