{"id":49445,"date":"2013-07-11T14:49:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/majority-of-americans-disapprove-of-obamas-foreign-policy-handling\/49445\/"},"modified":"2013-07-11T14:49:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:49:44","slug":"majority-of-americans-disapprove-of-obamas-foreign-policy-handling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/majority-of-americans-disapprove-of-obamas-foreign-policy-handling\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority of Americans disapprove of Obama\u2019s foreign policy handling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Approval for Barack Obama\u2019s foreign policy has dropped to an all-time low, with just 40 percent of Americans backing the president\u2019s handling of international affairs, while 52 percent disagree with his performance on the global stage, a new poll reveals.<\/p>\n<p>\n  The survey, released by Quinnipiac University on Thursday, shows<br \/>\n  that overall assessments of Obama\u2019s foreign policy are equally<br \/>\n  bleak when broken down on an issue-by-issue basis.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Only 33 percent of Americans support Obama\u2019s proposed path on<br \/>\n  dealing with Syria, with the majority opposed to intervention.<br \/>\n  \u00a0\n  <\/p>\n<p>Among those polled, only 27 percent of registered voters believe<br \/>\n  US involvement in Syria serves the national interest, while the<br \/>\n  same number Americans support the president\u2019s plan of providing<br \/>\n  arms and military supplies to forces fighting to topple the<br \/>\n  government of President Bashar Assad.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, 59 percent of Americans remain opposed to providing<br \/>\n  material support to Syrian rebels, with the overall lack of<br \/>\n  support cutting across party lines.\n  <\/p>\n<p>However, by a margin of 49 percent to 38 percent, voters did<br \/>\n  approve of the use of unmanned drones or missiles to attack<br \/>\n  Syrian government targets if it did not put American lives at<br \/>\n  risk.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Perceptions of his handling of the war in Afghanistan remains<br \/>\n  divided, with 46 percent agreeing with the course the president<br \/>\n  is taking and 45 percent opposed.\n  <\/p>\n<p>The president however, was viewed positively on counterterrorism<br \/>\n  issues, garnering a 52 percent approval rating.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/1f\/ba\/00\/00\/obbb-1.jpg\" alt=\"Reuters\/Pawel Kopczynski \" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n  <span>The latest survey also<br \/>\n  revealed that 48 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama\u2019s<br \/>\n  overall job performance, with only 44 percent approving, a slight<br \/>\n  bump from a May poll which put his negative rating at 49 percent<br \/>\n  and his approval rating at 45 percent. However, an April poll had<br \/>\n  the president polling favorably, with 49 percent supporting and<br \/>\n  45 percent opposing his job performance.\u00a0<\/span>\n  <\/p>\n<p>The poll was conducted between June 28 and July 8 among 2,014<br \/>\n  registered voters with a margin of error of 2.2 percent.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Despite Obama\u2019s handling of terror-related issues generally being<br \/>\n  viewed as positive, a separate Quinnipiag poll released Wednesday<br \/>\n  found that 45 percent of the public believe the government\u2019s<br \/>\n  antiterrorism policies have \u201cgone too far in restricting the<br \/>\n  average person\u2019s civil liberties.\u201d Forty percent on the other<br \/>\n  hand, said they have \u201cnot gone far enough to adequately protect<br \/>\n  the country.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/1f\/ba\/00\/00\/obb-1.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot from www.quinnipiac.edu\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n  <span>When posed the same question<br \/>\n  in 2010, only 25 percent of the pubic said the government had<br \/>\n  gone too far in restricting civil liberties, while 63 said it<br \/>\n  hadn\u2019t done enough to secure the country.\u00a0<\/span>\n  <\/p>\n<p>American voters further said, by a margin of 55 to 34 percent,<br \/>\n  that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who blew the lid<br \/>\n  on the agency\u2019s sweeping surveillance programs, is a<br \/>\n  whistleblower rather than a traitor.\n  <\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;The massive swing in public opinion about civil liberties and<br \/>\n  governmental anti-terrorism efforts, and the public view that<br \/>\n  Edward Snowden is more whistleblower than traitor are the public<br \/>\n  reaction and apparent shock at the extent to which the government<br \/>\n  has gone in trying to prevent future terrorist incidents,&#8221;<\/i><br \/>\n  said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University<br \/>\n  Polling Institute.\n  <\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;The fact that there is little difference now along party<br \/>\n  lines about the overall anti- terrorism effort and civil<br \/>\n  liberties and about Snowden is in itself unusual in a country<br \/>\n  sharply divided along political lines about almost everything.<br \/>\n  Moreover, the verdict that Snowden is not a traitor goes against<br \/>\n  almost the unified view of the nation&#8217;s political<br \/>\n  establishment,&#8221;<\/i> he continued.<br \/>\n  <\/p>\n<p>Republished with permission from: <a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/usa\/americans-disapprove-obama-policy-952\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Majority of Americans disapprove of Obama\u2019s foreign policy handling\">RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Approval for Barack Obama\u2019s foreign policy has dropped to an all-time low, with just 40 percent of Americans backing the president\u2019s handling of international affairs, while 52 percent disagree with his performance on the global stage, a new poll reveals. The survey, released by Quinnipiac University on Thursday, shows that overall assessments of Obama\u2019s foreign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}