Americans and Iraq, twelve years apart: Comparing support for the US wars in Iraq

The Social Science Journal 51 (2014) 231–239

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Americans and Iraq, twelve years apart: Comparing support for the US wars in Iraq Dana M. Williams a,∗ , Suzanne R. Slusser b,1 a b

Department of Sociology, California State University at Chico, Chico, CA 95929, USA Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminal Justice, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA 31698-0060, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 27 March 2013 Received in revised form 6 September 2013 Accepted 6 September 2013 Available online 15 October 2013

Keywords: Iraq Public opinion War Military force Bush

a b s t r a c t Significant differences exist in Americans’ support for force between the 1991 Persian Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War, even when holding all demographic variables constant. Nearly every group decreased their support from 1991 to 2003, including men and women, Whites and racial minorities, people with high school degrees or higher, nearly all age categories, and Democrat and Independent affiliated individuals. When examining potential causes for decreased support in the 2003 Iraq War, the “nature of the conflict” presents the strongest argument and evidence. The Persian Gulf War aimed to force the Iraqi army from Kuwait, while the Iraq War was aimed at changing the governmental regime of Iraq. The latter conflict was less socially acceptable than the former to Americans. These differences between the conflicts are the best explanation for the change in support, while other explanations, including the changing composition of the population and a less pro-military populace, are insufficient. © 2013 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The reasons for the first and second US military actions in Iraq changed—from forcing the Iraqi army out of Kuwait to stopping Iraq’s suspected “weapons of mass destruction” programs and deposing Hussein. On January 16, 1991, President George Bush said “Our objectives are clear. Saddam Hussein’s forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place and Kuwait once again will be free. Iraq will eventually comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions” (New York Times, 1991). On February 10, 2003, President George W. Bush stated “Saddam’s got to disarm. If he doesn’t, we’ll disarm him” (Dobbs & King, 2003). In this paper, we describe the nature of this change in American opinion. We explore reasons for differing levels

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 530 898 6384. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.M. Williams), [email protected] (S.R. Slusser). 1 Tel.: +1 229 333 3296.

of support amongst Americans for these two different USIraq conflicts. There are many possible explanations for a change in public opinion. First, the overall composition of the American population has changed, changing support for military force; for example, pro-war or anti-war sectors of the population may have increased or decreased in size. Second, specific opinions about the military—such as the general support among Americans—may have changed. Finally, varying levels of support may be explained by factors external to the US population, perhaps the character and rationale of the two different wars. The little research that has been done on past military conflicts shows interesting patterns that have implications for a variety of groups, including policy-makers and social movements. But, no research thus far has attempted to explore how Americans differed in their opinions of these two similar wars based on their social standings. Our research helps to better understand how the pretext for war impacts public opinion. The two US-Iraq wars offer remarkably similar, superficial conditions attractive for comparing changes in attitudes. Specific details for both wars vary greatly, however. Recent US military build-up in

0362-3319/$ – see front matter © 2013 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2013.09.004

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the Middle East began in 1990, culminating in conflict during 1991 for what is now called the “Persian Gulf War”. The pretext was to enforce a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution that condemned Iraq’s military invasion of neighboring Kuwait, a close US ally (Atkinson, 1993; Sifry & Cerf, 1991). The 2003 “Iraq War” began after the previous year’s political build-up to punish US-claimed violations of the UN’s embargo on Iraq, in particular on the importation of weaponry. The US used the pretext of Iraq having allegedly acquired weapons of mass destruction, and alleged collusion between Iraq and the terrorist network al Qaeda, who the US had been fighting in Afghanistan in the “War on Terrorism” since 2001. One of the stated goals of the US’s decision to go to war was to remove Hussein from power (Ehrenberg, McSherry, Sánchez, & Sayej, 2010; Keegan, 2005). Though the political contexts have changed, the same countries are involved and the heads of state have the same names. A US president named George Bush decided to invade the country of Iraq and its president Saddam Hussein in 1991, and a different US president named George Bush invaded the same country a dozen years later in 2003.2 Although the US presidents are different, and the conditions and pretexts for military action have changed, the two events beg comparison. Given the similarities, how has American opinion evolved over this period? Rarely has the political order created such a curious opportunity to analyze shift in American opinion about military force. 2. Popular support for military force Extensive public opinion research measures American attitudes about US military actions. This research focuses on public support in several ways, including support for general military force or force under qualified conditions, such as self-defense, regime change, retaliation; support for the President’s actions; and policy positions. Previous research on American opinions toward foreign policy considers earlier conflicts including the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Iraq wars and explores the impact of socio-demographic and political views on people’s attitudes on questions regarding military action. One compelling explanation for the varied support for military action is the specific political character and justifications given.3 Jentleson (1992) notes that Americans are more inclined to support military action if its intention is perceived to restrain another country’s aggression, as

2 A strong distinction between the two wars may be considered an artificial, social construction as there was an active US military presence in and around Iraq during the interim period, as well as regular aerial attacks. By considering the two wars as unique and separated by peacetime is not merely a convenient operationalization here, however, but a widely accepted although inaccurate view of US military behavior toward Iraq. 3 A variety of explanations are offered to explain longitudinal changes in public support over the course of wars. The two most popular are the casualty and the elite consensus hypotheses. However, each is predicated upon the public having time to react to mounting American casualties or elites withdrawing their support of a war. This study preempts these possible explanations by evaluating public support during conflict beginnings and does not consider wars longitudinally. Burk (1999) offers an overview and test of each hypothesis.

opposed to force that country to change its internal behavior or composition. During the 1980s and early 1990s, US public support was highest for short-term, punitive attacks like aerial bombing Libya, and lowest where government overthrow was intended, such as Nicaragua. Restraint was the official goal in the case of the first Iraq War, where military action was used to enforce a United Nations Security Council mandate to evict the Iraqi military from Kuwait and restrain Iraq’s regional military ambitions. However, the second Iraq War included US rhetoric aimed at political regime change within Iraq. As such, we expect lower support during the second war against Iraq than during the first war. This research considers Jentleson’s hypothesis that the official rationale given to justify a conflict strongly influences public support for military force; we explore his hypotheses, in part, by eliminating alternative hypotheses explaining support for force. In addition to changing political conditions, studies explore longitudinal pattern changes of the US public’s support for military action. Only a few studies compare the public’s opinions across multiple US military interventions. Often these comparisons do not involve statistical tests, but contrast different findings in a summary fashion. One of the earliest studies to compare attitudes about multiple wars explores the political attitudes of Americans toward both the Korean and Vietnamese Wars (Hamilton, 1968). In both wars, males, whites, high-status occupations, highly educated, high incomes, youth, and Republicans favored a tougher stance, bombing, and standing strong to Korea and Vietnam. The only change between these two wars in Asia is that White Protestants were not the only supporters of toughness in Vietnam, but were joined by Catholics who were previously in favor of negotiation in Korea. Although some findings on the Vietnam War might be contradictory in respect to the popular view of that time period—particularly the pro-war support of the highly educated and youth—it is important to note that the 1964 survey year was prior to the massive military build-up in Vietnam, as well as the anti-war movement mobilization among college-aged youth. For particular wars, some characteristics that studies consider—and which are of key sociological concern—include an individual’s gender, race, age, socioeconomic status, political party affiliation, and media consumption. One of the most robust findings in the literature is that women are less supportive of military conflict, with much research focuses on for US wars in Iraq. Women were more likely to oppose military action before, during, and after the conflict of the Persian Gulf War. American women were also more concerned about casualties, costs of the war, and to have negative emotions about it (Bendyna, Finucane, Kirby, O’Donnell, & Wilcox, 1996). American male college students were more likely than female students to think that casualties were necessary, that the censorship of military information was justified, to feel energized by the conflict, and less likely to feel helpless and depressed (Jayaratne, Flanagan, & Anderman, 1996). When analyzing support for the Persian Gulf War, American women were less likely than men to agree that they supported the war (Eveland, McLeod, & Signorielli, 1995). Men were more likely than women to support a higher level of

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military force against Iraq in 1990 for a variety of hypothetical scenarios (Doty, Winter, Peterson, & Kimmelmeier, 1997). It was not only American women who are reticent to support military force; across eleven large world cities, women were more likely to oppose the 1991 Persian Gulf War than men (Wilcox, Hewitt, & Allsop, 1996). More recently, women were less supportive in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars (Rohall, Ender, & Matthews, 2006). Unlike other research on gender differences, Smidt (2005) does not find a significant gender difference regarding attitudes toward disarming Iraq in 2003, after controlling for other factors. More broadly, women are significantly more opposed to recent US interventions since Vietnam, including Central America, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Afghanistan (Burris, 2008). Like women, racial minorities are more hesitant to support military conflict than Whites. This finding is found during recent decades of military conflicts. However, in the earliest figures available—1941 during World War II—Blacks were more likely than Whites to support the Democrat war President, Roosevelt (Kriner, 2006). This support of a war time President by a minority group is attributable to the by-then usual support for Democratic Presidents by African-Americans.4 Beyond the exception for WWII, the expected pattern regarding race and support for military force has been found since. For example, during the Persian Gulf War, minority college students were less supportive of President Bush and more supportive of peaceful resolution than their White classmates (Lee, 1993). There was a significant difference between nonHispanic Whites and minorities in Texas during 1998 in regards to attacking Iraq. These non-Hispanic Whites were more likely than minorities to think the war was necessary and that Iraq was dangerous, while minorities, including Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, were more likely to think the US should rely upon the United Nations to resolve diplomatic tensions (McAlister, 2000). Whites were also more supportive than minorities in both the recent Afghanistan and Iraq Wars (Rohall et al., 2006). Racial discrepancy in support for the Iraq War even existed within the US military: Blacks are over-represented in the military, but Black soldiers were significantly less likely to believe the US should have gone to war (50%) than White soldiers (80%), a difference independent of political ideology (Rohall & Ender, 2007). Age is another variable often considered in research on public opinion and is assumed to be differently influenced by life course phenomena, including the youthful age of soldiers, the length of an individual’s adult experience, and long-term political changes. For example, one effect of the Vietnam War was to make people in their younger years less supportive of war (Burris, 2008). But, this might be a generational effect, one that might not continue with time, especially considering that the US had a universal military draft for young men during the Vietnam War, which

4 Blacks have regularly voted for the Democrat Party since the Roosevelt presidency and most major American wars—except for the Vietnam War—have occurred during Republic presidencies. And, as will be discussed below, Republicans have been more supportive of recent wars.

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is a factor explaining declining youth support for the war (Bergan, 2009). Unlike gender and to a lesser extent race, there are no robust findings regarding age. Age was not a significant predictor of support for the Persian Gulf War when controlling for other factors, although the relationship was positive (Eveland et al., 1995). Later during the lead up to the Iraq War, younger people were significantly less supportive of invasion (Smidt, 2005). Education, income, and socio-economic status are often important factors affecting public opinion. Research shows mixed effects in respect to questions of war and military force. Education and income, combined with a socioeconomic measure, did not significantly predict support for the Persian Gulf War in one study (Eveland et al., 1995). However, another study finds a significant, positive relationship between income and support for the buildup and attack during the Persian Gulf War (Bendyna et al., 1996). Using military rank as a proxy for socio-economic status, enlisted soldiers were less supportive (74%) of the Iraq War than officers (80%) who have higher levels of education and greater income (Rohall & Ender, 2007). Burris (2008) suggests that those with higher incomes and education provide uncritical support for US military force in past conflicts, although that support has recently splintered. Finally, since foreign policy is centrally directed by presidents with partisan affiliations, the relationship between citizen’s political affiliations and their opinions toward war ought to be linked. Although not measuring party affiliation per se, conservativism significantly predicted greater support for the Gulf War, controlling for media consumption and perception of public opinion (Eveland et al., 1995). Smidt (2005) considers the role of party identification in his study of religion’s impact on disarming Iraq during the 2003 conflict and finds identification had mixed consequences: Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats to support invading Iraq, but the differences were insignificant when considering disarming Iraq. In both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Republican college students were more supportive than non-Republican students (Rohall et al., 2006). Citizen support for military conflict depends in part upon the popular portrayal of such conflict in the media. For example, Eveland et al. (1995) finds that people who watched more TV news were significantly more likely to support the Gulf War and were marginally more likely to support the war if they were viewers of CNN news in particular. Also, people who watched TV news and listened to radio news were more likely to believe that most people supported the Gulf War, compared to those who used less of those forms of media (Eveland et al., 1995). More recently, consistent patterns between college students existed for both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars: in both cases Whites, males, and Republicans were more in favor of the wars (Rohall et al., 2006). In general, for recent military conflicts, gender is a highly robust predictor of support, while race and SES is less robust but still occasionally significant. The Vietnam War temporarily dampened overall support for conflict, but did not end it. There has also been declining support for military action amongst youth since Vietnam (Burris, 2008). While support for military force has seen a certain level of consistency overtime,

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various segments of the population have changed their support. This paper adds to the literature on US public opinion toward military interventions by considering the statistical change in support for two similar wars. In the process, we evaluate different explanations regarding changed support for military action. 3. Data and methods Data are from two Pew Research Center polls, each conducted in the immediate aftermath of the US invasions in Iraq. Respondents were contacted by telephone from nationwide samples of adults. Our analysis includes 924 respondents in 1991 and 3620 respondents in 2003. The first poll was conducted on January 25–27, 1991, eight to ten days after Operation Desert Storm began. The second poll was conducted March 20–24, 2003, one to four days after Operation Iraqi Freedom began. These time periods are chosen for each war to facilitate a parallel comparison. The immediate aftermath of any invasion tends to fall within the rally effect period, in which support for military action is at its highest. For example, Parker (1995) finds that US support for military action against Iraq in the early 1990s was at a crescendo during the immediate invasion, but returned to pre-war levels of support within a year. Thus, the two dates selected in this study are likely the most pro-military period during each war. This study’s dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of military support: “Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?”, coded 0 = no, 1 = yes. This study estimates the influence of a variety of sociodemographic independent variables upon military support. Gender is coded as 0 = male, 1 = female. Race/ethnicity is coded as White, Black, and other. In the 1991 data, respondents were categorized as White, Black, and other, whereas in 2003 respondents could also choose a “Hispanic” option. Although data with more categories is desirable, we are constrained by comparing between White, Black, and other; thus, we recode the Hispanic respondents from 2003 into the “other” race category. Age is a continuous variable. Education is also a continuous variable, ranging from 1 = less than high school to 7 = post-college graduate. Some education categories from 1991 are recoded to be comparable to 2003 (“none”, Grades 1–4, Grades 5–7 and Grades 8 are recoded into the “less than high school” category). Annual incomes are set to the midpoint dollar amount of each category, and the highest open-ended category is transformed using the Pareto curve estimation (Parker & Fenwick, 1983). Income values from 1991 are adjusted for inflation to the value of 2003 dollars and logged. Party identification is coded as Democrat, Independent, and Republican. A small minority of people claiming identification with “other” parties are excluded from the analysis.5 How closely respondents follow news about the wars is an ordinal variable, including 0 = not closely at all, 1 = not too closely, 2 = fairly closely, and 3 = very closely.

5

See Appendix for more details on the survey and variable codings.

Three sets of analyses are presented below. First, we calculate the mean support for military force of each sociodemographic group and take note of differences by group between 1991 and 2003. Second, we use multivariate analysis to model these socio-demographics’ effect upon military support to see if there is a change between the two years. Given the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable, logistic regression is used to predict support for military force. Finally, we decompose the regression analyses in order to determine if the changes in support from 1991 to 2003 are due to substantive opinion changes or compositional changes in the sample population. From these different analyses we address the study’s central research question of the nature and sources of change in support for military force against Iraq. 4. Analyses For Americans in most socio-demographic groups, support for military force against Iraq eroded between 1991 and 2003 (Table 1). Both women and men decreased their support, as did every racial/ethnic group. As previous research noted, women (81% decreased to 72% from 1991 to 2003) were less supportive of force than men (87–82%). The changes between wars for both genders were statistically significant. African-Americans (a 58–47% decline) were less supportive than other minorities (82–72%). Like other scholarship, Whites were the most supportive of using military force, although that support declined (86–81%). Both Whites and other minorities had statistically significant changes between wars, while the change for AfricanAmericans was only marginally significant. To facilitate cross-year, comparative analysis, respondent age is classified into five year increments (Hamilton, 1968). In every age category, except those 65 and older, respondents decreased their support between wars, with varying levels of significance.6 Means by year are presented in Table 1 and all significant differences between wars are noted. According to Table 1, the effect of education on support for military force appears curvilinear. For both wars, support for force grew with level of education attainment, and generally peaked for those with an associate’s degree and then declined in support for those with more college experience. Only respondents with less than a high school degree increased their support for force in 2003, but the change was non-significant; all respondents with at least a high school degree decreased their support from 1991 to 2003, although the change was not always significant. In 1991, those with less than high school were the least supportive of force (63%), while in 2003 post-graduates had the least support (59%). Respondents with some college and college graduates both decreased their support significantly. The biggest change from 1991 to 2003 was experienced by those with less than high school educations (17% increase in support), while the biggest gap for

6 Although not shown, mean support by cohort were also compared. For example, respondents who might have been 18 in 1991 were 30 in 2003. When considering these cohort categories, support for force declined in all categories including those 65 and older.

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Table 1 Demographics of respondents and support for military force in Iraq. Variable

1991

2003

Change in support

% of Rs

% Support

% of Rs

% Support

Gender Female Male

50.0 50.0

80.8 86.7

53.2 46.8

71.8 81.6

−9.0*** −5.1**

Race Euro-American African-American Other

83.9 9.6 6.5

86.3 58.1 85.7

85.9 8.8 5.3

80.7 46.9 71.8

−5.6*** −11.2* −13.9**

Education Less than H.S. Incomplete H.S. H.S. grad Associates Some college College grad Post-grad

2.9 9.4 29.9 4.1 21.5 21.9 10.2

63.2 73.2 88.1 91.2 87.2 87.9 66.7

1.8 7.7 29.4 3.3 24.2 21.3 12.3

80.4 82.9 83.2 83.2 78.8 73.9 59.3

17.2 9.7* −4.9* −8.0 −8.4*** −14.0*** −7.4

Age 18–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 50–54 55–59 60–64 65 and older

13.9 12.1 11.3 12.2 11.9 6.6 7.2 5.4 5.7 13.6

90.2 85.8 87.0 79.6 84.3 83.6 84.5 89.4 80.0 74.3

10.2 7.6 9.4 9.4 10.6 9.9 10.3 8.4 6.6 17.6

74.6 78.9 78.8 77.5 78.2 81.7 72.1 77.9 77.2 76.2

−15.6*** −6.9 −8.2* −2.1 −6.1 −1.9 −12.4** −11.5* −2.8 1.9

Party affiliation Democrat Independent Republican

30.4 33.5 34.8

72.2 82.9 94.0

31.1 31.7 36.7

58.9 72.6 95.6

−13.3*** −10.3*** 1.6

Follow news Not closely at all Not too closely Fairly closely Very closely

0.5 2.9 28.2 68.3

50.0 52.6 85.0 84.6

1.3 6.4 32.8 59.5

46.2 63.8 75.8 81.6

−3.8 11.2 −9.2*** −3.0

Source: Pew Research Center. Notes: Chi-square tests. * p < 0.1. ** p < 0.05. *** p < 0.01.

contiguous degrees is between college and post-college graduates (21% difference in 1991 and 15% in 2003). The non-linear relationship of education’s relationship to military support is more easily viewed graphically. Fig. 1 shows the aforementioned changes in support by education level. As depicted, the 1991 curve is much more “normal” in shape; by 2003, due to the increase in support amongst the least educated, the curve flattens-out somewhat and only drops-off substantially amongst the most highly educated. The measurement of income varies from 1991 to 2003 and is thus not directly comparable. Consequently, income is omitted from Table 1. Democratic respondents were the least supportive of any party-affiliation in both years, decreasing in support, from 72% during the Persian Gulf War to 59% during the Iraq War. Independents also declined in support, dropping from 83% to 73%. The support from both Democrats and Independents changed significantly between the two

wars. Unsurprisingly, Republicans—the party of the two President Bushes—were the most supportive in both years, increasing their support from 94 to 96%, although this change is non-significant. Media consumption varied between the two years, with a significant difference between those who “fairly closely” follow the news: 85% of such people supported military force in 1991, but only 76% did so in 2003. Next, to see if the general patterns hold, we regress support on all the previously discussed socio-demographics. When controlling for all independent variables, race, education, income, and party affiliation are significant predictors of force in 1991. African-Americans were less likely to support force compared to Whites. Note that the following models include estimates for education curvilinearity. Education’s effect is curvilinear, with the lowest and highest levels of education less supportive of force than middle education levels. Both Democrats and Independents are

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Fig. 1. Support for military force against Iraq, by education. Source: Pew Research Center.

more likely than Republicans to oppose force. By 2003, the same general patterns held, except women became significantly less supportive of force than men, income ceased be a significant predictor of support, and those who followed the news more closely were more supportive of force (Table 2).

Lastly, Table 2 presents a final regression model that includes a dummy-variable representing the survey year (1991 = 0 and 2003 = 1). All independent variables—except age and other minority status—significantly predicted support for force. Crucially, the survey year predicted support,

Table 2 Logistic regression results of support for US military force against Iraq. Variable

1991 b

Female Age Black Other race Education Education2 Income (log) Democrat Independent Follow News

−0.312 (0.222) −0.012 (0.007) −1.545 (0.320) 0.453 (0.456) 1.081 (0.372) −0.150 (0.041) 0.570 (0.159) −1.429 (0.317) −1.183 (0.315) 0.046 (0.194)

2003 Odds ratio

b

0.732

−0.500 (0.132) −0.005 (0.004) −1.240 (0.202) −0.026 (0.282) 0.533 (0.234) −0.085 (0.025) 0.041 (0.086) −2.404 (0.209) −1.965 (0.211) 0.342 (0.093)

0.988* 0.213*** 1.054 2.947*** 0.861*** 1.768*** 0.240*** 0.306*** 1.047

Both wars Odds ratio ***

0.606

0.995 0.289*** 0.974 1.704** 0.910*** 1.041 0.090*** 0.140*** 1.408***

Survey year Intercept

−4.074 (1.744)

**

2.147 (1.039)

**

b

Odds ratio

−0.460 (0.112) −0.007 (0.003) −1.303 (0.169) 0.001 (0.238) 0.736 (0.196) −0.114 (0.021) 0.152 (0.075) −2.134 (0.173) −1.747 (0.175) 0.292 (0.083) −0.026 (0.011) 53.011 (21.062)

0.632***

Source: Pew Research Center. Notes: standard errors are presented in parentheses. Reference categories include: male, White, and Republican affiliated. * p < 0.1. ** p < 0.05. *** p < 0.01.

0.993* 0.272*** 1.001 2.088*** 0.892*** 1.164** 0.118*** 0.174*** 1.339*** 0.974** **

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thus indicating that 2003 respondents were significantly less supportive of force than 1991 respondents. This final result is of central importance, because we are interested in understanding why support decreased. The US population from which the samples are drawn could have changed substantially so as to affect the outcome of our analysis. For example, if the US population included more African-Americans or fewer Republicans in 2003, this might have caused the overall support of Americans to decrease. This issue is addressed by doing decomposition analysis, which allows the variance between years to be partitioned into different types, including compositional, regression, and interaction (Iams & Thornton, 1975). Decomposing the regression findings reveals if changes from one year to the next are due to a compositional change in the sample or due to a comprehensive change within the data itself.7 Thus, is the change from 1991 to 2003 due to an actual change in opinion or due to a change in the constitution of the US population? According to the decomposition analyses,8 all the variance between years is explained by the regression itself, not by any compositional changes. As shown in Table 3, the largest absolute value for each variable is the regression component—not the composition or interaction components. Therefore, we can conclude that changing attitudes toward the use of military force are not attributable to any demographic change among Americans, but constitute a real change in support. 5. Discussion and conclusions American popular opinion regarding military force against Iraq changed from the Persian Gulf War to the Iraq War. General support for military force in Iraq declined and the reasons for this change are of key interest. First, American support declined for people of nearly every demographic. A few groups did not reduce their support and actually increased support, although not significantly: low income, low education, and Republicans. There was also no evidence that the population has changed in composition, thereby, reducing support for force. For example, the decomposition analysis does not support the argument that women, African-Americans, or Democrats were a substantially greater percentage of the US population in 2003, thus shifting the country to a more anti-war position. Even if US composition did change, this

7 Decomposition analysis, or regression standardization, serves a variety of purposes, but its main objective is to “disentangle the factors producing differences between groups in the level of the dependent variable being studied” (Iams and Thornton, 1975, p. 341). Scholars usually assume—although sometimes fallaciously—that time change regression models indicate significant changes in overall variation in the dependent variables, independent of the composition of the samples analyzed. However, it is possible that significant differences exist for the dependent variable that stem from changes in who are in the samples analyzed. 8 Decomposition analysis is commonly done with linear regression and does not work with logistic regression. We have compared our basic models for each survey year and combined and determine the two methods’ results to be directly comparable: each significant independent variable in one method is also significant in the other. Thus, the decomposition analysis is conducted using linear regression results.

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Table 3 Decomposition of differences between 1991 and 2003 of support for military force. Variables

Composition component b1991 (X¯ 1991 − X¯ 2003 )

Regression coefficient component X¯ 2003 (b1991 – b2003 )

Interaction component (b1991 –b2003 ) (X¯ 1991 − X¯ 2003 )

0.0013

−0.0148

0.0010

Age

−0.0056

0.0388

0.0034

Black Other Subtotal

0.0016 −0.0002 −0.0014

0.0032 −0.0008 0.0024

−0.0002 0.0002 −0.0000

Education Education2 Subtotal

0.0241 −0.0273 −0.0031

−0.2772 0.1258 −0.1514

−0.0095 −0.0071 −0.0024

0.0024

−0.7902

−0.0024

Democrat Independent Subtotal

−0.0015 0.0023 0.0008

−0.0402 −0.0302 −0.0704

−0.0014 0.0020 0.0006

Follow news

−0.0004

0.1270

−0.0067

0.0135

−0.2347

−0.0121

Female

Income

Total

Source: Pew Research Center.

argument would not be compelling since men and Whites were also significantly less supportive in 2003 than in 1991. Additionally, the US population became older and more educated, and both of these factors have had contradictory effects upon opinions in past research. Since we know opinions changed and that demographic changes do not account for these changes, other possibilities deserve closer consideration. Because opinions are linked so closely to those presented by mass media, perhaps Americans were receiving more critical analysis of the military force in 2003, thus slanting their opinions more negatively than in 1991. Although elite American periodical editorials in 2003—including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, Time, and Newsweek—did not project unqualified support for the Bush Administration. Most newspaper editorials were more anti-war than pro-war, and some oppositional arguments were used. Pro-war arguments still dominated the discourse. The top three talking points coming from the Bush Administration outnumbered all anti-war editorial arguments, and represented a narrower range of opinion and rarely reflected moral or legal concerns over invasion (Nikolaev & Porpora, 2007). Still, even with this media support, our analyses show sizable minorities of Americans expressed hesitation to support the use of force, and in greater numbers than in 1991. If the mass media tended to be pro-war, how did Americans become more anti-war in 2003? Clearly, the simple deduction that opinions are formed directly by media opinion-makers is an insufficient explanation. Without the ability to compare the 2003 media climate to 1991, this remains a lukewarm hypothesis. We believe better arguments, such as the historical, political context in which the two wars occurred, also explain the differences. One such argument is the

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overall militaristic orientation of the American people. For example, just a few years prior to both US-Iraq wars, two distinct, significant world events took place. In the late1980s the Soviet Union collapsed, leading to diminished popular American support for high-levels of Cold War military spending. As a result, the American people’s militarism cannot be used to explain our above findings of greater support for the 1991 war. According to 1991 General Social Survey (GSS) data, Americans who wanted to increase military spending were a small minority: only 13.8% thought that there was “too little” military spending in the US. However, less than two years prior to the Iraq War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US occurred, shifting American support of military force in the opposite direction. 9/11 was used by the George W. Bush administration to rally the widespread, patriotic sentiment created by the tragedy in favor of military action against Iraq (Gershkoff & Kushner, 2005). Thus, GSS data in 2002 indicates that 35.9% of Americans, more than twice as high as 1991, thought the US spent too little on the military. Even though support for greater military spending was higher during the Iraq War compared to the Persian Gulf War, the population was instead less supportive of the Iraq War itself. This suggests that the change in support for force between the two US-Iraq wars is at least partially independent of the militaristic character of the US population. The changes shown by the GSS illustrate a more militaristic population offering less support for military force. All things being equal, this suggests that some Americans, who might have otherwise endorsed military force in 2003, may have withheld their support. One other potential reason for changes in support for force against Iraq may be the nature of military force. As discussed earlier, Jentleson (1992) hypothesizes that wars of restraint receive more support than wars of force. In the 1991 case, US military force was premised upon enforcing international law, discharging a mandate of the United Nations condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. This use of US military force received more American support, according to Jentleson, because it was more multilateral and did not attempt to overthrow Iraq’s government. In the 2003 case, US military force was largely premised upon retribution for an alleged violation of the restrictive arms embargo, tenuous connections of Iraqi collusion with the 9/11 attacks, and the regime change of Iraq’s leadership. Since the 2003 justifications were less rooted in international law and restraint—and were more unilateral in character—Americans supported the use of military force less than in 1991. However, is Jentleson’s argument—that the nature of a war creates different levels of support—strong enough? While a compelling argument that has evidence, it must remain a default conclusion lacking certainty. Carefully crafted questions may lead to factors contributing to individual’s support or non-support for military force, during each respective time period. For example, perhaps there was greater resistance in 2003 because US troops were committed to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, and remained there by the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Or, Americans may have been more supportive of the Persian Gulf War as it followed closely after the short and successful invasion of Panama and arrest of

Manuel Noriega. Barring this unavailable data, other possibilities deserve focus in future research. To select one final example, does this decreasing support represent a comparable “Vietnam Effect” where the American population has become increasingly hesitant to lend support for a particular war? In this instance, measuring attitudes in-between the 1991 and 2003 wars can help: if midpoints have support levels lower than the Persian Gulf War, but still higher than the Iraq War, then there is a stronger case for a long-term decline in support, although the rally effect may inappropriately influence this analysis. Thus, the reasons given for military action by a US president may have no sway over some people’s opposition to military force. As such, Americans may be becoming increasingly anti-war, regardless of the nature of a military conflict. Teasing out the varied explanations for the change in American support for war in Iraq stands as a remaining challenge for public opinion scholars.

Acknowledgements Thanks for assistance to Rudy Fenwick, Thomas Hochschild, Nilanthi Samaranayake, Benjamin Vieth, and John Zipp.

Appendix A. All data from both time periods are from the Pew Research Center and were made available courtesy of the Pew Research Center. Persian Gulf War survey (“The People, The Press, and the Persian Gulf”)

Iraq War survey (“The Pew Internet and American Life Project”)

Collection: January 25–27, 1991

Collection: March 20–24, 2003

Do you think the US made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?

Do you think the US made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?

Respondent’s sex

Respondent’s sex

What is your race? Are you white, black, or some other?

What is your race? Are you white, black, Asian, or some other race?

What is your age?

What is your age?

What is the last grade or class you completed in school? None or Grades 1–4 Grades 5, 6, or 7 Grade 8 High school incomplete (Grades 9–11) High school graduate, Grade 12 Technical, trade, or business after high school College/university incomplete College/university graduate Some post-graduate training for an advanced degree, for example, a master’s degree, Ph.D., law or medical degree

What is the last grade or class you completed in school? None or Grades 1–8 High school incomplete (Grades 9–11) High school graduate (Grade 12 or GED certificate) Business, technical, or vocational school after high school Some college, no 4-year degree College graduate (B.S., B.A., or other 4-year degree) Post-graduate training/professional school after college (Master’s degree/Ph.D., Law or Medical school)

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Appendix A (Continued ) Is your total annual household income before taxes $20,000 or more or is it less than $20,000? (IF “UNDER” ASK:) Is it over or under $15,000? (IF “UNDER” ASK:) Is it over or under $10,000? (IF “OVER” ASK:) Is it over or under $30,000? (IF “OVER” ASK”) Is it over or under $50,000?

Last year, that is in 2002, what was your total family income from all sources, before taxes. Just stop me when I get to the right category Less than $10,000 $10,000 to under $20,000 $20,000 to under $30,000 $30,000 to under $40,000 $40,000 to under $50,000 $50,000 to under $750,000 $75,000 to under $100,000 $10,000 or more

In politics today, do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, or Independent?

In politics today, do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, or Independent?

How closely have you been following news about the War in the Gulf? Very closely Fairly closely Not too closely Not at all closely

Now I will read a list of some stories covered by news organizations this past month. As I read each item, tell me if you happened to follow this news story very closely, fairly closely, not too closely, or not at all closely? Debate over the possibility that the U.S. will take military action in Iraq. Very closely Fairly closely Not too closely Not at all closely

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