{"id":53256,"date":"2006-05-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-16T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2006\/05\/16\/the-iraq-vietnam-difference\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:49:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:49:06","slug":"the-iraq-vietnam-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2006\/05\/16\/the-iraq-vietnam-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"The Iraq-Vietnam Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public opinion toward the U.S. war in Iraq bears striking parallels &#8211; and clear contrasts &#8211; with the war in Vietnam more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In both cases, presidents tied their political fortunes to the war. And in both cases, they paid a heavy political price when the public grew disillusioned with the conflict.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet while opposition to the two wars traced a similar arc, the nature of that opposition differed politically. Although Vietnam is recalled as a divisive conflict, opinions about whether the war was a mistake did not divide sharply along partisan lines. Gallup trends from the mid-1960s through the early &#8217;70s show that the difference of opinion between Republicans and Democrats about Vietnam never exceeded 18 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In contrast, Iraq divides America along partisan lines in a way that Vietnam never did. The latest Pew survey finds that 73% of Democrats believe that military action in Iraq was the wrong decision, compared with just 14% of Republicans &#8211; a gap roughly three times as great as the largest partisan gap in opinions about Vietnam. (In June 1967, 51% of Republicans viewed Vietnam as a mistake, compared with 33% of Democrats.)<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2006\/05\/15\/the-iraqvietnam-difference\/\">Read the full analysis at pewresearch.org.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public opinion toward the U.S. war in Iraq bears striking parallels &#8211; and clear contrasts &#8211; with the war in Vietnam more than three decades ago. In both cases, presidents tied their political fortunes to the war. And in both cases, they paid a heavy political price when the public grew disillusioned with the conflict. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","sub_headline":"This time, the opposition runs strongly along party lines<br \/>by Michael Dimock","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","bylines":[],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[520],"class_list":["post-53256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-international-conflict-1","formats-report","research-teams-politics"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":195,"canonical_url":"http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pubs\/25\/the-iraq-vietnam-difference","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"The Iraq-Vietnam Difference","parent_id":53256},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"The Iraq-Vietnam Difference","description":"Public opinion toward the U.S. war in Iraq bears striking parallels - and clear contrasts - with the war in Vietnam more than three decades ago. 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