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POLITICS

65% Want U.S. To Stay Out of Syrian Crisis

Dictatorial Syria appears to be cracking down harder on anti-government protestors than any other country in the region except Libya, but U.S. voters are adamant about staying out of the problems of yet another Arab country.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just nine percent (9%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the United States should get more directly involved in the Syrian crisis. Sixty-five percent (65%) say America should leave the situation alone. But one-in-four voters (25%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These findings are comparable to the views voters held in the early stages of the protests in Egypt in late January and in Libya a month later.

Yet while the Obama administration has limited itself publicly to criticism of the Syrian government’s actions, just 28% of voters think the administration’s response has been good or excellent. Nearly as many (23%) rate the response as poor.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) say they are following recent news reports about the political unrest in Syria at least somewhat closely, with 27% who are following Very Closely. This is slightly less interest than Americans showed toward Egypt and Libya as protests in those countries grew. The high level of uncertainty in some of the responses suggests voters are not following the Syrian situation very closely at this time.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 9-10, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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