Majority strongly supports use of U.N. force

WASHINGTON – The American public strongly supports the use of U.N.-authorized multinational force against terrorist threats and genocide, as opposed to unilateral U.S. action, according to a survey by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.

Since 2002, when the group last conducted a similar survey, the public sees international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and the prospect of enemies acquiring nuclear weapons as less of a “critical threat.” Two years ago, 83 percent of the public saw the threat of unfriendly countries becoming nuclear powers as critical, compared with 64 percent this July.

“An explanation for these declines could be that Americans are discounting the gravity of these threats after three years without another direct terrorist attack on American soil, or may have become skeptical of alarms about them, including the now questionable imminent danger of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” the council concluded.

The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations is an independent forum, and its poll is regarded as one of the most comprehensive surveys of foreign-policy attitudes. The survey of 1,195 people, conducted by the marketing company Knowledge Networks, had a plus-or-minus margin of error of 3 percentage points.

In one finding, 66 percent agreed that “when dealing with international problems, the United States should be more willing to make decisions within the United Nations even if this means that the United States will sometimes have to go along with a policy that is not its first choice.”

A majority also favored the United States making a “general commitment” to accept the decisions of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, and 74 percent would favor the creation of a standing peacekeeping force commanded by the United Nations.

The survey found strong support (71 percent) for the Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming and the International Criminal Court (76 percent). The Bush administration has opposed both.

Several analysts said many of the findings might help Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s campaign, but one said President Bush’s use of the war on terrorism as a defense of his more unilateral policies had helped shore up support.

“There’s a startling disconnect between the public’s worldview in this survey and Bush’s oft-stated worldview,” said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy research center. “Knowing that many in the world hate us leaves people intensely uncomfortable.

“But the intensity of views (by the public) is not that great, so in the midst of a war, with troops in danger, there’s a greater willingness to defer to the commander in chief,” Ornstein added.

Ivo Daalder, a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution and a critic of Bush policy, said he’d noticed a change in tone from the president, who’s stressing the contribution other countries are making in Iraq.

“Bush has talked about multilateralism, and Kerry is saying he would use force if necessary,” Daalder said. “In that way, both sides have moved toward each other.”