Americans surveyed in last month's poll were not optimistic about chances that a stable democratic government will be established in either country. Seventy-eight percent said it was either not too likely or not at all likely in Afghanistan and 80 percent said the same about Iraq, ABC News reported on Friday.

Roughly three out of four Americans polled think that in the hindsight, each war will be deemed as an outright "complete failure" or "more of a failure than success."

A majority of those polled, or 70 percent, said the United States was right to withdraw American troops from Iraq in 2011 and pull most US forces out of Afghanistan by December. The two conflicts have consumed the nation for more than a decade and claimed the lives of 6,800 US troops.

Following US-led military invasion of the two Muslim countries, American officials drafted an imposed their own idea of a "democratic" systems in both war-ravaged nations without any-regards for their faith-based principles and values.

In Iraq, in particular, many observers beleive the constitution imposed on the country by a US-installed governing body during the occupation years was delibratedly designed to ultimately disintegrate the multi-ethnic country, leading to the country's current crisis.

Americans surveyed in the poll think more bad news is on the horizon.

Fifty percent — up 18 points in the past seven months — think the situation in Afghanistan will get worse. Fifty-eight percent — up from 16 percent in December 2009 — expect conditions in Iraq will worsen. The poll was conducted shortly after Takfiri extremists conducted an offensive that shattered security in Iraq.

People over 50 expressed far more pessimism about the ultimate outcome of the two conflicts than their younger counterparts.

Sixty-two percent of those over 50 said the situation in Afghanistan would get worse in the coming year, compared with 40 percent of younger Americans. On Iraq, that gap is even larger, with 72 percent age 50 or older expecting things to get worse compared with 47 percent of those under age 50.

Older Americans also are more likely to think the US war in Afghanistan will be judged a failure in the future; 86 percent of those 50 or older feel that way, compared with 64 percent among those under age 50. They are also more likely to doubt that a stable democratic government will be established there; 88 percent age 50 or older say it's unlikely to happen compared with 70 percent age 18 to 49.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted July 24-28, 2014 using KnowledgePanel, GfK's probability-based online panel designed to be representative of the US population. It involved online interviews with 1,044 adults, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for all respondents. It is larger for subgroups.

NTJ/