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 The nation is on edge in the wake of brutal beheadings of journalists by Islamic extremists — with more Americans saying the United States is less safe now than at any point since 9/11, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll shows. 
 
 The exclusive poll reveals that 47% of Americans believe the country is less safe now than before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That’s a significant increase from even a year after the twin towers fell when in September 2002 just 20% of the country said the nation was less safe. The level of fear across America also is up substantially from last year when 28% felt the same way. 
 
 In fact, just 26% of Americans now feel the nation is safer than before 9/11. 
 
 The numbers are a backdrop for the primetime speech President Obama will deliver on Wednesday night outlining his plan to combat the terrorist group ISIS, which has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria, beheaded two American journalists, distributed images of the killings in via gruesome videos, and has launched a social media campaign to extend its reach. 
 
 Read the full poll here. 
 
 “A very war-weary country … seems to have woken up to the real threat that ISIS may present,” says Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart and his colleagues at Hart Research. 
 
 “The beheadings are so chilling to the American public,” added Hart. “The only things I think of equal impact are the self-immolations back in Vietnam.” 
 
 The new poll also found that more than six in 10 respondents believe that taking military action against the Islamic militant group ISIS is in the nation’s interest. 
 
 And a whopping 94 percent of Americans say they have heard about the news of the beheaded journalists – higher than any other news event the NBC/WSJ poll has measured over the past five years. 
 
 That includes the 2011 debt-ceiling debate (77 percent), the 2012 health-care decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (78 percent), Syria’s reported use of chemical weapons in 2013 (79 percent) and this year’s botched execution in Oklahoma (68 percent). ||||| Thirteen years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, this was supposed to be a season of relief, with Iraq managing on its own and most U.S. troops finally ending their combat duty in Afghanistan. Instead, Americans are bracing for another upsurge of military engagement in a region where one war blurs into another. Across the world, a generation has now grown up amid this continuous conflict, and there's no end in sight. 
 
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 "The Cold War took 45 years," said Elliott Abrams, a longtime diplomat who was top Middle East adviser to President George W. Bush. "It's certainly plausible that this could be the same. ... It's harder to see how this ends." 
 
 For now, President Barack Obama seems to have bipartisan support as he prepares to outline his plans Wednesday for expanded operations against militants of the so-called Islamic State who have overrun large swaths of Iraq. His administration has cautioned that the effort could take several years. 
 
 Short-term, Obama has public opinion with him; a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found 71 percent of Americans supporting airstrikes against the Islamic State fighters, compared to 45 percent in June. Longer-term, a Pew Research Center-USA Today poll last month suggested that most Americans view the world as becoming more dangerous and expect militant forms of Islam to grow in influence rather than subside. 
 
 Since the autumn of 2001, America, with its allies, has been at war against factions of Islamic militants and terrorists, including the Taliban and al-Qaida, as well as offshoots in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. 
 
 Indeed, some analysts say the conflict dates back further, citing such incidents as the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemen at a barracks in Lebanon. Military historian Max Boot suggests the starting point was the Iranian revolution of 1979, when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized and its staff held hostage for 444 days. 
 
 "For the first time, we understood the threat by armed Islamist extremism," said Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former adviser to Republican presidential campaigns. "We didn't face up to it — we tried to ignore it as long as possible. But after 9/11, we couldn't ignore it anymore." 
 
 The Sept. 11 attacks triggered the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S. and its allies, starting in October 2001, with the aim of dismantling al-Qaida's base of operations and toppling the Taliban regime. The Taliban, though quickly ousted from power, has been waging an insurgency ever since. 
 
 In 2003, the U.S. spearheaded an invasion of Iraq, citing various justifications but nonetheless categorizing the conflict as part of "the Global War on Terrorism." Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured, tried and executed, yet an insurgency arose against the U.S.-led coalition waged by various factions, including al-Qaida affiliates and Sunni militants who were precursors of the Islamic State group. 
 
 Obama's plans for an expanded mission against Islamic State fighters are expected to include intensified airstrikes but no major deployment of ground troops, along with a heavy reliance on allies. The role of Middle East nations could be pivotal, said Wathiq al-Hashimi, director of the al-Nahrein Center for Strategic Studies in Baghdad. 
 
 "The United States failed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but this time round may be different since the Islamic State is posing a serious danger to close U.S. allies in the region who cannot defend themselves on their own," al-Hashimi said. "The United States will be going in this time with the blessing of regional powers." 
 
 Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, contends that much of the Middle East's conflicts could have been avoided or eased if the U.S. government had been less willing to tolerate authoritarian regimes and more willing to criticize Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. 
 
 Hooper said the Islamic State group's ascension in Iraq could have been prevented if the U.S. had insisted on a nonsectarian Iraqi government, rather than the one led by recently replaced Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that favored Shiite Muslims over the Sunnis. Similarly, Hooper said the U.S. could have deprived Islamic State of its strongholds in Syria by intervening early in Syria's civil war on behalf of moderate rebels opposing President Bashar Assad. 
 
 "Our counterproductive policies have created a political vacuum in which ISIS can flourish," said Hooper, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. "Without massive injustices in the region, they would not exist." 
 
 James Jay Carafano, a national security expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation, offered a contrasting analysis, blaming Obama for "taking his foot off the pedal" by withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 and thereby emboldening Islamic State fighters. 
 
 Back in 2003, Carafano published a commentary titled, "The Long War Against Terrorism" in which he urged Americans to brace for a sustained struggle. 
 
 "Such a war requires our leaders to understand that our staying power, our will to win, is as important as any weapon in our arsenal," he wrote. 
 
 However weary of war, the American public is willing to back aggressive, long-term engagements overseas, Carafano argued in a telephone interview this week. 
 
 "All our conflicts start out popular, but only World War II stayed that way," Carafano said. "People gradually get less excited over time. 
 
 "But Americans are relatively practical people," he added. "If you're doing the right thing and it's working, they'll be with you." 
 
 Looking ahead, experts familiar with the Middle East say it's hard to foresee a total victory for the U.S. and its allies any time soon. Elliott Abrams, for example, noted that many hundreds of young people from the West were eager to join the Islamic State group, enabling it to replenish its ranks and gird for a long struggle. 
 
 "It's clear that the Americans have made up their minds to get involved in what is likely to be an open-ended war," said Hilal Khashan, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. "The Americans know how to start a war, but not to end one." 
 
 "The Americans' intervention is selective: They invaded Iraq but left Iran alone, they are leaving Israel to do as it pleases in Gaza, they are leaving the Syrian regime to kill its people," Khashan added. "And whenever they intervene, they just make things worse. They may destroy the Islamic State, but what happens to the problems in Iraq and Syria?" 
 
 Daniel Byman, research director at the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy, said he prefers the term "manageable" over "winnable" as a goal in trying to counter threats from the region's extremists and terrorists. 
 
 "There's no clear victory point when the enemy gives up," Byman said. "There's likely to be some level of terrorism, but it can't be to the point where it disrupts our lives in some fundamental way." 
 
 Max Boot suggested the overall conflict was winnable — but only through a long-term struggle comparable to the Cold War. 
 
 "This radical, armed Islamism will burn itself out," he said. "The problem is an awful lot of people who will die between now and then." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press reporter Hamza Hendawi contributed to this report from Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraryAP ||||| Story highlights Sources: U.S. doesn't even have airstrike targets, should Obama OK them 
 
 President Obama says a decision on military help will take days 
 
 Iraq militants look positioned to hold onto gains 
 
 No troops to Iraq, but other options are being considered. 
 
 That was President Barack Obama's message Friday in response to the lightning advance by Sunni militant fighters in Iraq that could threaten the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. 
 
 In a statement delivered from the White House South Lawn, Obama said the United States "will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq," but that he would be reviewing a range of other options in coming days. 
 
 "This is not going to happen overnight," the President said, adding that unless Iraq fixes its internal political problems, short-term military help from the United States won't make much difference. 
 
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 Critics blame Obama for Iraq crisis 
 
 Pressure for the United States to provide military support to Iraq's struggling government has increased, with conservative Republicans blaming Obama for creating a security vacuum in 2011 by pulling out U.S. troops. 
 
 GOP critics also say that Obama's unwillingness to provide significant military backing to opposition forces in Syria's civil war has contributed to the ability of the militant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, to attack in Iraq. 
 
 Obama, however, resists getting drawn into another military engagement there after the ending the nine-year conflict started by his predecessor. 
 
 Now the conflict threatens to widen. Iranian officials denied reports Friday that some of its elite forces were in Iraq to help bolster al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite. 
 
 Syria connection 
 
 Taking questions from reporters after his statement, Obama acknowledged that the Syrian civil war has been spilling over into Iraq "for some time now," adding that the regional conflict "is going to be a long-term problem." 
 
 Perhaps sensitive to the criticism over the Syrian link, Obama and other government officials referred to the Sunni militant group by the acronym ISIL, which stands for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. 
 
 The President called on Iraq's neighbors to help out, too, but made clear the only guarantee of success involved political reforms by al-Maliki that promoted cooperation with Sunnis. 
 
 "In the absence of this type of political effort, short-term military action, including any assistance we might provide won't succeed," Obama said. 
 
 Obama also blamed Iraq's political dysfunction for the failure of its troops to fight off the ISIS advance from the north to within about 60 miles of Baghdad on Friday. 
 
 He noted the United States has given plenty of aid and training to Iraqi forces -- including $15 billion for items such as Hellfire missiles, assault rifles and helicopters, not to mention another $1 billion in arms now in a 30-day review period in Congress. 
 
 "The fact that they are not willing to stand and fight and defend their posts against admittedly hardened terrorists, but not terrorists who are overwhelming in numbers, indicates that there is a problem with morale, a problem in terms of commitment, and ultimately that is rooted in the political problems that have plagued the country for a very long time," Obama said. 
 
 Shia-Sunni divisions 
 
 James Rubin, a former senior State Department official in the Clinton administration, told CNN that "it's up to Maliki to change policy on how he treats with, how he deals with the Sunni community." 
 
 "I'm skeptical, because right now he's in a fight for his life," Rubin said. 
 
 Underlying the U.S. concern is the potential threat of an ISIS-controlled stronghold in the region that could serve as a staging ground for terrorist activity against American interests. ISIS fighters already have seized Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, while gaining control of large parts of the country's north. 
 
 Rubin warned the conflict could result in Iraq dividing into three pieces -- a Sunni-controlled north, a Shia-controlled south and a Kurdish region. 
 
 Bob Baer, a former CIA official who is CNN's national security analyst, said ISIS could "sow chaos through the Middle East," and was "definitely" a threat to the United States. 
 
 Surprising speed 
 
 The speed of the deterioration of the situation in Iraq surprised even U.S. officials closely monitoring the country, a U.S. official closely involved with military decision-making told CNN's Kyra Phillips. 
 
 "We've been watching the intelligence continually and the fractures in Iraq that have grown as a result of the underlying political environment and lack of inclusive governance," the U.S. official said. "If anything was surprising, it's only the speed at which the situation continued to deteriorate over the past few days and the apparent ease at which the (Iraqi security forces) abandoned their units and positions." 
 
 Meanwhile, a U.S. counterterrorism official noted the intelligence community had warned of a growing ISIS threat to Mosul and Baghdad. 
 
 The official told CNN that the group, consisting of a few thousand fighters, "couldn't have moved as rapidly as it has without the support of some nationalist Sunni groups and sympathetic tribes." 
 
 "As long as the support of these Sunni elements holds, ISIL looks well-positioned to keep the territory it has captured, absent a major counteroffensive," the official said, using the same acronym for the group as Obama. 
 
 The Pentagon is preparing options for Obama to consider that would halt the momentum of the ISIS advance, Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. 
 
 Preparations? 
 
 A U.S. official told CNN on Friday that the United States plans to move the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush into the Persian Gulf to provide Obama with options for possible airstrikes. 
 
 Calls for American airstrikes have increased in Washington, but U.S. military planners trying to find a way to help Iraq fend off the militant fighters are worried that such attacks could prove futile, several officials told CNN. 
 
 Among other complications, U.S. officials don't have good intelligence about where militants are. Even if they did, the militants don't have the type of targets -- command and control centers, air defense sites, military bases -- that lend themselves to aerial attacks, the officials said on condition of not being identified. 
 
 They also noted that ISIS fighters may be spread out inside population centers, which means airstrikes could risk civilian casualties and property destruction at the hands of the U.S. military. 
 
 So even if Obama decides on airstrikes, the U.S. doesn't currently have targets to hit, administration sources told CNN's Jake Tapper. Figuring out what to go after will take time. 
 
 The President appeared to allude to such challenges when he said: "We want to make sure that we've gathered all the intelligence that's necessary so that if, in fact, I do direct an order, any actions there (are) targeted, they're precise, and they're going to have an effect." 
 
 Air strikes 'not easy' 
 
 Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a war veteran and critic of Obama administration policy in Iraq, also spoke to this point Friday, telling CNN that air strikes "are certainly something that should be considered, but I would point out that air strikes are not easy." 
 
 "You just don't say, 'hey, let's go hit something,'" said McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election. "It requires coordination, it requires intelligence; it requires a whole lot of things." 
 
 One U.S. official told CNN that short of sending ground troops, options under consideration included increasing U.S. surveillance flights over ISIS areas and potential airstrikes. 
 
 At the Pentagon, Kirby said the United States already had intensified its intelligence support in Iraq at the request of al-Maliki's government. 
 
 However, James Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012 who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, characterized Iraq's military as "ill-trained, badly led and not particularly competent." 
 
 "They clearly cannot fire and maneuver," said Jeffrey, a U.S. Army veteran. 
 
 McCain called for Obama to fire his national security team, saying the decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq created a predictable vacuum that led to the current crisis. 
 
 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Iraqi civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Erbil, Iraq, on Thursday, June 12. More than 500,000 people fled in fear after extremist militants overran Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, on June 10, the International Organization for Migration said. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Iraqi refugees pass an area in Erbil on June 12. Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Young refugees sleep in a tent at a temporary camp in Aski Kalak, Iraq, on June 12. Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – A girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at a refugee camp near Erbil on Wednesday, June 11. Hide Caption 4 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Families gather at a checkpoint in Iraq's Kurdish region on June 11. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – A man in a wheelchair is among those fleeing the violence on June 11. Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – A security guard is seen at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 11. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Construction begins on refugee camps in Erbil on June 11. Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Vehicles clog a highway as refugees flee Mosul on Tuesday, June 10. Hide Caption 9 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Refugees are seen in Erbil on June 10. Hide Caption 10 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – People believed to be refugees flee Mosul on June 10. Hide Caption 11 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Iraqi families are given water as they gather at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 10. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – The rush from Mosul led to bottlenecks at checkpoints as people tried to reach safety in Erbil, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) to the east. Hide Caption 13 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Many people are fleeing on foot. Mosul's four main hospitals are inaccessible because of fighting, and some mosques have been converted to act as clinics, the International Organization for Migration said. Hide Caption 14 of 15 Photos: Photos: Iraqi civilians flee Mosul Iraqi civilians flee Mosul – Iraqi police stand guard at a checkpoint in Baghdad. Hide Caption 15 of 15 
 
 Map: Unrest in Iraq 
 
 To McCain, a residual force of U.S. troops should have remained in Iraq to provide stability, "the same kind of residual force that we have now in Bosnia, that we have in Germany, we have in Japan." 
 
 "That doesn't mean we're in combat. It means we are there as a stabilizing force," he said, adding that the ISIS advance represents "an existential threat" to America. He linked the Iraq situation to the administration's reluctance to strongly support opposition forces in Syria's civil war, a policy he called "one of the causative factors" for the Iraq crisis. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry , however, cited differences in U.S. relations and obligations with Iraq compared to Syria. The Iraq war that began with the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein eventually led to elections that brought al-Maliki to power, followed by the 2011 departure of U.S. forces. 
 
 "In Iraq, there is a government that we have been deeply involved in, that we support, that we have a military relationship with, that we have an ongoing memorandum of understanding regarding the military relationship which has invited us, asked us for help," he said. 
 
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– Some six in 10 Americans say they would support a strike against ISIS, as President Obama appears to be moving toward such a hit. The figure comes from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that also finds Americans feeling unsafe: Some 47% of the country now feels the US is less secure than it was before the 9/11 attacks. Just a year after those attacks, NBC notes, only 20% shared that feeling; last year, it was 28%. One news item fueling the fear: US journalists' beheadings, which 94% of Americans are aware of. That's the highest level of awareness of any story in the past five years, according to the poll. A day before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Obama is preparing for a tough speech. Tonight in prime time, he'll discuss the US plan against the group, an initiative that will start small and expand; eventual airstrikes in Syria are possible, Politico reports, while the AP notes that major troop action on the ground is unlikely. Meanwhile, a generation has come of age as the post-9/11 conflict has continued, the AP notes. In an earlier vision of the future, Iraq was supposed to be fending for itself by this point, with US troops largely leaving Afghanistan combat behind; instead, we're preparing for further action in the region. "The Cold War took 45 years," says a former George W. Bush adviser. "It's harder to see how this ends."