Most Americans Believe the Iraq War is "Creating More Terrorists"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:10 PM on July 5, 2007.

This post, written by Amanda Terkel, originally appeared on Think Progress

ThinkProgress has obtained results of a new poll released yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, a conference hosted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute. The poll finds that voters of all parties are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq, believing the United States will fail. The war has distracted from the fight against terrorism and other domestic priorities. Some highlights:

- 82 percent say people in other countries view the United States unfavorably.

- 71 percent say people in other countries now view the American people unfavorably.

- 53 percent of American believe the largest threat facing the United State is from terrorist organizations.

- 83 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should share a leadership role with allies and other countries around the world.

- 63 percent of voters think the U.S. should focus on domestic problems instead of foreign affairs.

- 56 percent of Americans believe that the war in Iraq is distracting us from the war on terror.

- 67 percent believe the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists.

- 72 percent favor diplomacy to pressure with Iran.

Also yesterday at the festival, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said, "Habeas corpus is coming back, and we're going to solve that one."

According to a recent LA Times/Bloomberg poll, 68 percent of the American public also wants Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. The Center for American Progress recently released a report called Strategic Reset that lays out a plan for the withdrawal of virtually all U.S. troops within one year and phases out the U.S. "training of Iraq's national security forces."

More updates from the Aspen Ideas festival HERE.

Tagged as: polls, iraq war, terrorism

Amanda Terkel is Associate Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.