Official military operations have ended in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but the U.S. is still heavily involved in those countries’ security affairs. Over the past year, U.S. military involvement in both countries could be characterized as on the rise, or at least not on the wane. This week, President Barack Obama announced the deployment of an additional 450 troops to Iraq to aid in the fight against the militant group Islamic State, bringing the total number of troops sent since June of last year to 3,550. Obama made good in 2011 on a campaign pledge to withdraw all American troops from Iraq, though he has since had to reverse course as the Islamic State group overran portions of the country.

In Afghanistan, a muscular Taliban insurgency has also complicated Obama’s efforts to withdraw troops from that country, a goal most Americans shared when Gallup last asked about it in 2012. In March, Obama announced he would maintain U.S. troop levels, which stand at 9,800, until at least the end of 2015, a break from previous plans for a speedier withdrawal.

Still, these countries’ ongoing challenges have not led to a rising level of regret among the American populace for having entered Iraq or Afghanistan. Iraq remains the theater of operations Americans are more likely to see as a mistake, as has been the case since the U.S. began the military campaign in March 2003. Nonetheless, initial support for U.S. involvement was quite positive, but by the summer of 2004 a majority had decided that it was a mistake — a quicker souring on the military action than had occurred in the 1960s after the nation’s initial involvement in Vietnam.