Americans support Afghan buildup

President Obama has found a vast well of support for his plans to bolster U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, according to a new poll released Thursday.

Fully 62 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s plan to send 17,000 new troops to Afghanistan, twice the number as those who oppose the idea, according to the Quinnipiac University survey. The move is backed by wide margins by Republican and independent voters, and by more voters who backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) than who backed Obama.

{mosads}The administration is still conducting a comprehensive review of Afghanistan policy. But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, meeting with NATO allies in Brussels, Belgium, called for a special international conference among foreign ministers to help sort out goals for Afghanistan.

Clinton told NATO allies the meeting, possibly to be held March 31 in Brussels, would be led by the United Nation’s special representative for Afghanistan and could be opened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Along with representatives from NATO nations, Clinton said Afghanistan and Pakistan would be invited, as well as strategic neighbors and partners in the region.

The poll comes a week after Obama announced his plans to increase American troop presence in Afghanistan amid deepening security concerns and resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda-affiliated insurrections.

The first wave of 12,000 troops will consist of 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., and 4,000 troops leaving from Fort Lewis, in Washington State.

Americans are more narrowly divided on whether Obama should grant requests from some military commanders that he bolster the number of new troops headed for the region to 30,000, adding an additional 13,000 to the number already set to be deployed. Just 47 percent say Obama should send the extra troops, while 43 percent disagree.

In all, Americans back Obama’s handling of foreign policy by a wide margin, with 56 percent approving of the job the new president is doing and 21 percent disapproving. Only Republican voters have a net-negative view of Obama’s approach.

And while the war in Iraq remains unpopular — just 36 percent say going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do, while 60 percent say it was the wrong thing — Americans still think invading Afghanistan was the correct course of action. Nearly three in five voters say going into Afghanistan was the right thing for the U.S., while 36 percent — —including a majority of self-identified Democrats — say it was wrong.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to end the war in Iraq in little more than a year.

“If Obama’s support erodes, it seems more likely to come from those who are generally in his corner,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll. “If the war in Afghanistan does not progress well, the president could face opposition from within his own core constituency.”

The Quinnipiac University poll surveeyd 2,573 registered voters between Feb. 25 and March 2. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.9 percent.