The war against the Islamic State and public opinion in the U.S.
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Abstract
On the 23rd of September of 2014, Barack Obama declared the beginning of a new war against terrorism in Iraq and Syria, with the objective of fighting the Islamic State (ISIS). A high percentage of Americans support this new war. This has been a consistent pattern in the wars in which the United States has been involved in the past decades: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Public opinion, at first, supported the decision of launching military attacks. However, this trend has not been maintained as these wars have advanced and their costs continued to increase. The war in Iraq is a clear example of this pattern; in 2003, when the war began, 70% of the public supported the government’s decision of launching a military campaign, while in 2013, 13 years later, only 35% of the population still believed that the war was necessary. Although the public opinion does not seem to be relevant to those who design the national security strategies in the United States, it is interesting to note that among the citizenry, there is debate, dissent and questioning about the current military intervention in Syria and Iraq. What are the factors that drive these changes in public support for military actions? In the war against the Islamic State, will these factors influence in the way they did in other recent wars of similar nature?
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