President Obama and his aides were surprised this month by the strength of public opposition to their call for military action against Syria. They shouldn’t have been.
Americans have almost always been reluctant to go to war. In 1939, polls showed that most Americans not only wanted to stay out of war against Nazi Germany, they weren’t even sure they wanted to send military aid to Britain — fearing, perhaps, a slippery slope.
Today, Americans have additional reasons to be skeptical. There’s the toll of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s the fear that any war in the Middle East will inevitably become a quagmire. And there’s also a fundamental change in American attitudes toward their leaders. [cont.]
Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times
Recent polls: Syria