480 CHAPTER 15|FOREIGN POLICY
One of the most prominent foreign policy interest groups is the
American Israel Public Aff airs Committee (AIPAC). This group
has lobbied for increased military aid to Israel and American sanc-
tions against Iran, among other matters, and the group contributes
to the campaigns of congressional candidates who share its goals.^35
Other groups focus on publicizing international events in the hope
of prompting citizens to demand government action. For exam-
ple, the Stop Kony organization created a video to increase global
awareness of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lords Resistance Army
based in Uganda, and the alleged use of child soldiers in his fi ght
against the governments of Congo, the Central African Republic,
and South Sudan.
As mentioned in Chapter 8, the impact of lobbying eff orts like
these is hard to determine. For example, although AIPAC is a pow-
erful interest group, it is likely that America’s foreign policy would
largely favor Israel regardless of AIPAC’s actions.^36 Similarly, as
of spring 2012 the Kony video had been viewed over 100 million
times on various websites and attracted considerable press attention, but it has
not prompted any new international action against Kony. Interest groups’ infl u-
ence over foreign policy depends mainly on the same two factors as their infl uence
over domestic policy: groups hold the most sway when few citizens care about the
matter and when the issue is noncontroversial.THE MEDIA
Television, radio, print media, and the Internet all inform the public about events
in America and elsewhere. However, it is not clear that evaluations of America’s
foreign policy are driven solely by the news media’s decisions about what to cover
and how to report it. In the case of Afghanistan there is no doubt that media cov-
erage during 2011 and 2012 was generally negative and that public opinion on the
war declined during this period. However, both trends refl ected the facts on the
ground during that time: a persistent insurgency, limited reconstruction, political
stalemate, and steadily rising American casualties.PUBLIC OPINION
Foreign policy decisions are also sensitive to public opinion. For example, congres-
sional attempts in 2007 to make funding for the Iraq confl ict conditional on set-
ting troop withdrawal deadlines were driven in part by the shift in public opinion
against the war—and by the infl uence of that shift on the 2006 midterm elections,
in which many Republicans who had supported the war were defeated or came
close to defeat.^37 More recently, declines in public support for the war in Afghani-
stan have probably stimulated congressional calls to accelerate the withdrawal of
American ground forces.
Though elected offi cials generally consider public opinion when making foreign
policy decisions, their judgments must take into account the problems of mea-
suring opinions (see Chapter 5). After all, public opinion is sensitive to context,
including both how and when survey questions are asked. For example, fears of
another terrorist attack on the United States increase sharply every time there is
an attack elsewhere in the world.
The fact that public opinion is sensitive to context means that Americans may
sometimes ignore foreign policy questions (or their representative’s positions onIN 2010, PRESIDENT OBAMA HELD
bilateral talks with President
Hu Jintao of China in an effort
to increase nuclear security. In
addition to being the United States’
chief diplomat, the president
also tends to dominate decisions
related to war and security.