70% Oppose Obama Arming Syrian Rebels

70% Oppose Obama Arming Syrian Rebels

on Mon, 17 Jun 2013

A Pew poll released Monday shows that our politically divided country is fairly unified on one big issue. A huge majority of 70% oppose President Obama's announced plan to arm the rebels in Syria currently waging a war to unseat that country's sitting president, Bashar Assad. Only 20% favor the plan.

When broken down by party, 74% of Independents, 71% of Republicans, and 66% of Democrats are in opposition to the president.  The main concern of those polled is the fear that the new boss will be an awful lot like the old boss.

Lessons learned from Egypt, perhaps?

A Gallup poll also released Monday backs up Pew, but the numbers aren't quite as bad for the president. 54% disapprove of Obama's decision, with only 37% approving.  

Obama fares a little better among those following the situation in Syria closely, but he is still upside 7 points with only 44% approving and a majority of 51% disapproving.

The results from both Pew and Gallup are from polls taken after the Obama administration announced it had confirmed the Syrian government used chemical weapons against the rebels. This, Obama announced some time ago, would be a "red line" when it came to America's involvement.

Part of the problem for Obama is that unlike his predecessor, the dreaded George W. Bush, our current president has done a lousy job of explaining to the public just why it is in the best interest of the United States to involve ourselves in a Syrian civil war.

But Obama has never been very good at selling anything outside of himself as a cipher of hope and change.

Concrete policies, like ObamaCare, have only lost ground the more Obama pitched them. Even  with 99% of the media on his side, Obama couldn’t even sell sequester as something to be blamed on the GOP congress.

Another problem the president has is that this decision in Syria is coming when many consider it to be too little and too late. The moment where we might have made difference seems lost now that Assad is back on offense and reclaiming vital cities.