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Missing the Obvious on Diplomacy and Public Opinion

James Traub and David Ignatius make a similar and very odd claim in their latest pieces. Traub writes: Instead of George Bush’s “if they hate us, we have to explain ourselves better,” the national mood has become “if they hate us, we’re leaving.” Where is the national groundswell of support for Obama’s potentially ground-breaking diplomacy […]

James Traub and David Ignatius make a similar and very odd claim in their latest pieces. Traub writes:

Instead of George Bush’s “if they hate us, we have to explain ourselves better,” the national mood has become “if they hate us, we’re leaving.” Where is the national groundswell of support for Obama’s potentially ground-breaking diplomacy with Iran? Nowhere. He’s on his own.

Ignatius said something very much the same:

But to complete the agreement, and ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful, Obama will need strong support from Congress and the public. Right now, it’s hard to imagine that he will get it. The public doesn’t want war, but it doesn’t seem to like entangling diplomacy much, either.

These are odd things to say for a few reasons. First, the polling evidence that exists suggests that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of diplomacy with Iran on the nuclear issue, and a majority approves of the interim deal reached with Iran. Is that a “groundswell” of support? I’m not sure, but what would substantial public support for diplomacy look like if it doesn’t include broad majority approval? It’s not as if there are going to be massive rallies to celebrate a highly technical diplomatic agreement.

On what grounds does Ignatius say that the public doesn’t like “entangling diplomacy”? It all depends on what the diplomacy achieves, I suppose, but the evidence from just this year suggests that when the public is presented with a diplomatic solution–even one that most believe won’t work–most are more than ready to give it a chance if it means that the U.S. isn’t fighting another unnecessary war.

Support in Congress for a nuclear deal with Iran is a different story, but that’s not because public support fr it is lacking. Public support for diplomacy in general and for negotiations with Iran in particular already exists. The evidence for that in just the last month has been impossible to miss, so how is it that both Traub and Ignatius missed it? I suspect that the reason both jumped to the wrong conclusion here is that they equate support for international engagement with an endorsement of an activist U.S. role in the world that most Americans don’t favor. If more than half of Americans agree with the statement that the U.S. should “mind its business,” they take that to mean something far more absolute than the respondents intended.

P.S. Paul Pillar noticed Ignatius’ mistake first.

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