Fox News poll: Voters disapprove of arming Syrian rebels

A sizable majority of Americans disapproves of the Obama administration’s decision to send weapons to anti-government rebels in Syria.

Overall, 66 percent of voters disagree with arming the rebels, according to a Fox News national poll released Wednesday.  Twenty-four percent approve.

The objection is widespread across demographic groups, as large numbers of men (63 percent), women (69 percent), those under age 45 (65 percent) and over age 45 (66 percent), as well as those who have served in the military (67 percent) and those who haven’t (66 percent) disapprove.

In addition, majorities of Republicans (77 percent), independents (64 percent) and Democrats (58 percent) disapprove of providing arms directly to the anti-government groups.

Still, there is some partisan division: Democrats (32 percent) are about twice as likely as Republicans (15 percent) to agree with the administration’s decision to send weapons.

The poll asks voters how involved the United States should get in Syria.  The most common answer -- not at all.  A 44-percent plurality says the U.S. should get out of the conflict completely.  Another 36 percent favor providing only humanitarian and other non-military assistance, while just 11 percent say send weapons directly to the rebels.

There is overwhelming partisan agreement here:  About 8 in 10 Democrats (79 percent), Republicans (79 percent) and independents (82 percent) prefer getting out of the conflict altogether or going back to providing only non-military aid.

In general, voters give President Obama negative marks for his handling of foreign policy.  Forty-one percent approve, while 50 percent disapprove.  The last time the question was asked, in October 2012, views were more positive: 49 percent approved and 44 percent disapproved.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,012 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 22 to June 24.  The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.