When a situation is rapidly evolving, instant polling results can be misleading. It often takes time for opinion to settle. While polls are important barometers of the country’s views, they are a blunt tool and shouldn’t be used to make policy, whether the issue is Afghanistan or mask mandates. Question wording can pull people in one direction or another. In our deeply polarized age, many people follow partisan cues when they hear or read a question. We also know that people often have complex and contradictory emotions when they are confronted with new information.

That said, it is still worth looking at a few early polls for what they tell us about recent developments in Afghanistan. An August 16 Ipsos poll found that around 70 percent were familiar with America’s 20-year involvement there, and separately, with the plans to remove troops, as well as with the Taliban’s rapid advance.

People
hold conflicting emotions, as these questions on key developments from three different
pollsters illustrate. Sixty-one percent in the Ipsos poll wanted to complete
withdrawal of US troops on schedule (72 percent of Democrats, 48 percent of
Republicans), but in another question, 50 percent supported sending troops back
in (53 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of Republicans). Fifty-one percent in
another question (54 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans) said it
would have been worth it to stay another year.

An
Economist/YouGov online
poll conducted August 14–17 found 33 percent saying the US made a mistake about
recently withdrawing troops (20 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of
Republicans) while 36 percent said it wasn’t a mistake. In the poll, however,
45 percent approved of the plan to withdraw by September 11 (64 percent of
Democrats, 29 percent of Republicans), and 32 percent disapproved. It is
important to note, however, that in both these questions, about three in 10
said they didn’t know how they felt.

A
Morning
Consult/POLITICO August 13–16 online poll showed that 49
percent of registered voters supported Biden’s plan to remove all US troops by
September 11 (69 percent of Democrats, 31 percent Republicans) and 37 percent
were opposed. In another question, 38 percent supported withdrawing troops even
if the Taliban takes control (49 percent of Democrats, 28 percent of
Republicans), while more, 45 percent, opposed it. Question wording matters; Americans
have always been reluctant internationalists and aware of the difficulty of nation
building. Still, the new polls suggest that they aren’t ready now to turn their
backs on 20 years’ worth of effort, lost lives, billions of dollars spent, and
a horrific life for people there.

The new polls all show low approval of Biden’s performance on Afghanistan. The Morning Consult/POLITICO poll found that only 31 percent approved. The Economist/YouGov response was a similar 32 percent. The Ipsos poll gave him lower ratings than previous presidents on handling Afghanistan.

Doubts about President Biden’s stewardship of foreign affairs have been raised by the events in Afghanistan. Still, the new polls tell us little about how recent events will affect his presidency in the long term or the 2022 elections in the short run. Sadly, we know something about how the Taliban’s advance will likely affect the Afghan people.

The post Evolving, complex views on Afghanistan appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.