So much for American isolationism

Remember when pundits were worried that Americans had turned isolationist? As recently as August, polls showed big majorities opposed to military intervention in Iraq, Syria or anywhere else. But it only took a couple of beheadings by Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) to turn a nation of war-weary non-interventionists into an angry, warlike tribe.

In a CBS News poll last month, a massive 71 per cent of those surveyed said they supported continued air assaults against Daesh. Even more notable, the number of people who supported sending US troops to Iraq “to fight [Daesh] militants” (which sounds like ground combat, something that US President Barack Obama has said he will not do) had increased to 47 per cent, up from 39 per cent in September. And a big majority said they believed US ground troops were needed to defeat Daesh in the field. There are still a few holdouts, of course. Last week, when Obama announced he was doubling the number of US troops in Iraq, Code Pink protested from the left, and former representative Ron Paul chimed in from the isolationist right. But in the vast stretch of American politics in between, Obama’s decision was broadly accepted on its merits.

On the left, Senator Bernie Sanders affirmed that the militants of Daesh “have got to be defeated”. On the right, hawkish Republicans including Senator John McCain of Arizona said Obama’s escalation was, if anything, too little and too late. Even Senator Rand Paul said the military action was “justified”; his only complaint was that Congress had not authorised it. And that suggests that if Obama decides to put some US forces into combat in the fight against Daesh — now US soldiers act solely as advisers — there is already considerable public support for such a move.

So what happened to all the isolationists?

It turns out that even though the public still yearns for fewer wars and less entanglement overseas, there is at least one big exception: They want a robust response to terrorist attacks against Americans.

“Even when the public wants to withdraw from international engagement, if you hit us, there’s a Jacksonian reflex — we’re going to protect ourselves,” said Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Centre.

And even though Daesh has not mounted any attacks outside its home ground in the Middle East, the group’s rhetoric — along with its success in seizing territory and those horrifying videotaped beheadings — quickly convinced Americans that it poses a direct threat to the US. In the CBS poll, 58 per cent said they considered [Daesh] a major threat to the security of the US, while 21 per cent said they considered the group a minor threat.

“It’s not surprising that people are outraged by beheadings; that’s appropriate,” said John Mueller of Ohio state, who has long argued that public concern about terrorism has been exaggerated. “But the fact that so many see [Daesh] as a major threat to the United States frankly amazes me.”

Americans have long had a warlike streak. When presidents have made the decision to go to war, even in cases in which the enemy seemed less threatening than Daesh, the initial public response has traditionally been support — known to scholars as the “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Such patriotism does not always translate into support for the president, however, and it certainly has not this time. Even as Obama has escalated US action against Daesh, his overall standing among voters has remained stuck around the 40 per cent mark.

In the CBS poll, the number who said they believed Obama had a clear plan for dealing with Daesh actually declined from 35 per cent in September to 29 per cent at the end of last month. That could be in part a reflection of partisan feeling in the heat of a mid-term election campaign. But it also reflects a harsh reality of post-Cold War politics: Presidents do not get as much deference as they used to — even when they are waging war.

“If you go back to the Cold War era, even Jimmy Carter got a big bounce in public support during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979,” Kohut said. “But that was a different time.”

Post-Cold War presidents, by contrast, have reaped little or no political gain from going to war — even when they were far more hawkish than Obama. George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, was blamed for the early fiascos of his invasion of Iraq — a taint that the popularity of his second-term “surge” strategy never erased. His father, George H.W. Bush, won the Arabian Gulf War against Iraq handily — and was turned out of office the following year.

There is no reason to think things have changed. Obama will have to accept the cruel reality of post-Cold War politics: If the war goes badly, his standing will suffer. And even if it goes well, it will not do him much good.

— Los Angeles Times