Capt. William Urban/U.S. Navy via AP
- 62% of Americans think US troops will have to return to Afghanistan to fight terrorism, a new poll says.
- But 69% of Americans say that ending the war was the right thing to do, according to Quinnipiac.
- The poll also found that 50% of Americans now disapprove of the way Biden's handling his job.
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According to new poll released by Quinnipiac University, 62% of Americans think US forces will have to return to Afghanistan to fight terrorism.
The results highlight a stark partisan split. While 83% of Republicans believe American forces will have to return to the Central Asian country, just 38% of Democrats agree. Meanwhile, 65% of independents also believe that US forces will have to return.
At the end of August, the United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, putting an end to a nearly 20-year war that began following the 9/11 terror attacks. US forces evacuated over 100,000 people from the country, but nearly 170 Afghan civilians died in an August 26 terrorist attack by ISIS-K at the Kabul airport, which also killed 13 US service members.
Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that a civil war in the country is likely following the US withdrawal, and that such a conflict could enable a resurgence by the terror group Al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, Biden administration officials have argued that the US can effectively combat any terrorist threat via "over-the-horizon" capabilities, including using aerial surveillance and drone strikes from military installations in the region.
Yet even as most Americans anticipate further US troop deployments, a strong majority - 69% of all respondents - say that ending the war in Afghanistan was the right thing to do. That includes 48% of Republicans, more than the 45% who say it was the decision was wrong-headed.
But the poll also spelled trouble for President Joe Biden: 50% of Americans now disapprove of the way he's handling his job, while just 42% approve. That includes a majority of self-identified independents, 52% of whom disapprove of Biden.
The Quinnipiac University poll, conducted from September 10 through 13 following the August 31 withdrawal. The poll included 1,210 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.