Reuters, Washington, 12 Sep 2014 – Americans support President Barack Obama’s campaign of air strikes against Islamic State militants but have a low appetite for a long campaign against the group, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday.
Sixty-four percent of people in the online survey said they backed the campaign, which Obama said in a televised address this week is being escalated and spread beyond Iraq to Syria. Twenty-one percent were opposed and 16 percent said they did not know.
The poll result is good news for Obama as he tries to build support at home for attacking IS, as well as putting together a coalition of allies against the militant group which has taken a swath of territory in Iraq and Syria.
Weary after years of ground war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans look favorably on air strikes because they are less risky, said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
“People see air strikes as surgical. They think we are able to go in and do something that affects in a negative way this horrible group of people and we are able to extract ourselves with only a very low risk to American lives,” she said.
But when asked if they supported the air campaign even if it lasts two or three years, the proportion of those in favor dropped to 53 percent. Twenty-eight percent were against a long air campaign and 19 percent said they did not know.
The poll was conducted almost entirely after Obama’s speech about Islamic State on Wednesday night.
When asked what is the best response to the threat posed by the Islamic State, 44 percent of people in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said air strikes while only 9 percent favored sending American troops to fight the militants.
A quarter of respondents said the United States should fund and support a multinational intervention against the group.