Some 53 percent of respondents to the poll said the pace of the planned withdrawal was too slow, 34 percent said the pace was just about right and 10 percent said it was too fast. All combat troops are scheduled to leave by the end of 2014.

Just 16 percent of those polled said they expected the situation in Afghanistan to “get better” over the next year; 32 percent said they expected it to “get worse” while about half said they expected the situation to “stay about the same.”

Meanwhile, six in 10 Americans approve of the preliminary deal between Iran and six global powers over Iran’s nuclear program. But that support is soft and many doubt it will lead to concrete results.

Even though President Barack Obama garners more disapproval than approval on the handling of Afghanistan and Iran, he generally gets better ratings on foreign policy than on domestic issues.

Nearly half (49 percent) approve of his handling of US relations with other countries while 50 percent disapprove. In contrast, just 40 percent approve of his handling of the economy, while 59 percent disapprove. And on health care, the approval rating stands at 39 percent, with 61 percent disapproval. His overall job approval is at 42 percent, with 58 disapproving.

The slightly higher ratings on foreign policy generally make sense, suggested Philip Salathe, 70, of Indianapolis, who participated in the poll.

Salathe said Obama in 2008 ran against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who during the campaign joked about dropping bombs on Iran. “I figure we could fix the economy if it gets ruined and we can repeal any bad laws that get passed,” Salathe said, but a military confrontation with Iran or other foreign policy crisis could have more disastrous consequences.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted Dec. 5-9 using KnowledgePanel, GfK’s probability-based online panel. For results based on all 1,367 adults, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

NTJ/NJF