Sixty-one percent (61%) of U.S. voters agree with President Obama’s decision to put more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Twenty-five percent (25%) are opposed to putting more troops in the war-torn country, and 14% are not sure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Republicans are more supportive of the president’s action than are members of his own party. Seventy-two percent (72%) of GOP voters support the decision to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, compared to 54% of Democrats. Sixty percent (60%) of voters not affiliated with either party agree.

But 20% of voters overall say the United States should pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Sixty-nine percent (69%) disagree, and 11% are undecided.

Support for this action is highest among Democrats, 31% of whom favor the removal of all troops right away. That view is shared by 11% of Republicans and 16% of unaffiliated voters.

Obama recently announced the deployment of 17,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, bringing the U.S. military total in the country up to 53,000.

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Despite the addition of more U.S. troops into the fighting there, just 23% expect things to get better in Afghanistan over the next year, while 42% say things will get worse. Fifteen percent (15%) think things will stay the same, and one-out-of-five voters (20%) isn’t sure what will happen.

Confidence that things will improve in Afghanistan over the next year is down six points since the first of the year.

A plurality of voters (43%) believe that Afghanistan is the central front in the War on Terror, but 29% disagree. Again, a sizable number (28%) are not sure. These numbers are unchanged from a survey taken last July during the presidential campaign.

During that campaign, Obama argued that the Bush administration was fighting the War on Terror on the wrong front in Iraq and that Afghanistan was the true central front of the war.

Democrats are more confident, however, that things will get better in Afghanistan over the next year. Thirty percent (30%) of Democrats believe this to be true, compared to 21% of Republicans and 16% of unaffiliated voters.

Nearly half of both Republicans (47%) and unaffiliateds (48%) expect things to get worse there in the next 12 months, as do 33% of Democrats.

Violence is now at its highest level in Afghanistan since fighting began there in October 2001, as the radical Islamic Taliban has become resurgent in the southern part of the country. The traditional fighting season in Afghanistan, limited due to weather, generally begins in the spring and is expected to be more violent this year because of a presidential election there in August.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters say there have followed news reports about the situation in Afghanistan at least somewhat closely. Thirty-two percent (32%) are following very closely. Just two percent (2%) say they are not following news about Afghanistan at all.

Confidence in America’s fighting of the War on Terror rose this month, with 51% of voters saying the United States and its allies are winning.

A majority of voters (52%) give Obama good or excellent marks on his handling of national security matters thus far in his presidency.

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