One-third of Iraqis believe America secretly supports ISIS

1 in 3 Iraqis believe America supports ISIS.
(Image credit: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)

Many Iraqis are far from confident that the United States is a positive force in their country, a recent State Department report reveals. In fact, about one in three Iraqis believe America secretly supports the Islamic State terrorist network (ISIS), which has ravaged the country over the last two years:

The [American] embassy [in Baghdad] confronts active disinformation campaigns and residual suspicions about U.S. policy that undermine its messaging. Recent Department polling shows that about 40 percent of Iraqis believe that the United States is working to destabilize Iraq and control its natural resources and nearly a third believe that America supports terrorism in general or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL or ISIS], specifically. [State Department]

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.