What Americans Really Think About ISIS

This week, Brookings unveiled a new poll by Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami that dives below the"approve/disapprove" numbers to offer a more sophisticated picture of how the American public views the campaign against the Islamic State and the broader conflict in Syria and Iraq. Among the findings, one of the most striking is the reasoning respondents select for favoring the deployment of ground forces to battle ISIS. 43 percent say that deployment is justified simply because ISIS is an extension of al Qaeda, presumably because the United States is already at war with them and that war must be finished. The next most chosen justification, at 33 percent, is that ISIS is ruthless. Only 16 percent site the justification as ISIS's threat to U.S. vital interests. You can listen to the full event below or on the Brookings website. Shibley Telhami, E.J. Dionne, Jr., and Susan Glasser discuss the poll's findings in a conversation moderated by Tamara Cofman Wittes.