Pew Survey Highlights Partisanship of Iraq Reactions

An interesting report originally published in May by the Pew Research Center, “The Iraq-Vietnam Difference: This time, the opposition runs strongly along party lines,” highlights the degree to which opinion on the initial decision to invade Iraq splits along party lies. The report also analyzes the bifurcation in Republican views about the decision to attack compared to management of the occupation. The piece may be known to many of you, but I had not seen it before.

“Iraq divides America along partisan lines in a way that Vietnam never did. The latest Pew survey finds that 73% of Democrats believe that military action in Iraq was the wrong decision, compared with just 14% of Republicans – a gap roughly three times as great as the largest partisan gap in opinions about Vietnam,” Pew reports.

“Republicans have remained steadfast in their belief that the war was the right decision; 82% say that today, almost no change from February 2005. Just 22% of Democrats agree – again, little changed from last year. … The proportion of Republicans who believe the US will succeed in Iraq has fallen from 83% to 74% over the past year, and the share who believes the war is going well has dropped by a similar margin. Overall, just 65% of Republicans approve of how the president is handling the Iraq situation, down from 78% in February 2005,” the piece continues.

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