Most Americans oppose sending U.S. ground troops to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, though an overwhelming majority see the terrorist group as the greatest threat in the Middle East and most generally agree with confronting it, according to a poll released Thursday.
Seventy percent of those polled said the Islamic State is the greatest threat in the Middle East, compared with 13 percent who named the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and 12 percent who said Iran. And 57 percent said intervening to confront that threat at the “necessary level” was preferable to staying out of the conflict.
But when asked whether the U.S. should commit ground troops if the current allied air campaign fails to stop the group, 57 percent said “no,” though 53 percent of Republicans were willing to do so.
Those ambivalent results could be explained by two others: Only 20 percent believe that the United States can defeat the Islamic State in a way that ensures it will not return. Though only 22 percent believe the U.S. could not defeat the Islamic State, a majority of those polled — 56 percent — thought the group would re-emerge after being defeated.
And only a minority, 40 percent, believe most Muslims oppose the Islamic State, with 44 percent saying Muslim views are evenly balanced between support and opposition.
The Nov. 14-19 poll of 1,008 adults was conducted by the Brookings Institution and GfK for the Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
