Working

I liked Tim Fernholtz's gloss on the whole issue of whether or not Obama needs to change his Iraq policy: "George Packer touched off a discussion yesterday with a comment suggesting that conditions in Iraq might be improving so much that Obama won't able to see through his ambitious withdrawal plan."

Right. To surge optimists the surge has gone so well that to contemplate the war ending at any point is to court disaster. I've favored leaving Iraq for years now. I'd like to start doing as soon as possible. But of course I'm not a crazy person -- if some gambit was on the table that stood a good chance of "working," in the sense of creating a sustainable dramatic improvement in conditions in Iraq, over a year-long time horizon I'd be happy to endorse that rather than leaving so soon. But the definition of "working" I'd be working with, the common sense one, is that after your policy "works" the war ends on relatively favorable terms.

But surge-working isn't "everyone relax, the troops will be home by Christmas once they finish their job"-working. Instead it's "this is working so well that the war can continue indefinitely but our troops will be killed at a slower rate"-working. It's not, "be a bit more patient and this thing will end" it's "we think we've enhanced the political sustainability of an expensive and pointless effort to dominate Iraq."

Comments

Victory is shoving stuff under the carpet until Bush leaves office in January. When things start going to hell again in 2009, it will be all Obama's fault. That is the victory the republicans are counting on. Was there some other measure you were looking for?

Posted by Helter | July 2, 2008 2:01 PM

When things are bad, republicans tell us we can't leave because things are going so poorly. Now they pronounce the surge to have succeeded (high debatable), but we still can't leave. No matter the conditions, republicans will never want to leave. No matter the conditions, they will justify staying in Iraq.

McCain's position in Iraq is this:

We can't leave because things are bad. But, once things are good, we'll stay.

It's time to be honest. McCain and the republicans do not want to leave Iraq under any conditions.

Posted by patagonia | July 2, 2008 2:04 PM

Victory is shoving stuff under the carpet until Bush leaves office in January. When things start going to hell again in 2009, it will be all Obama's fault. That is the victory the republicans are counting on...

Posted by Helter

Nail on head. Except I'd be on the lookout for late Bush Jr. team moves to actively situate things so that they get dramatically worse very early into the Obama administration -- i.e., phasing out all those payments to insurgents to not attack us, etc., typical Rovian type sh*t.

Posted by El Cid | July 2, 2008 2:13 PM

"Except I'd be on the lookout for late Bush Jr. team moves to actively situate things so that they get dramatically worse very early into the Obama administration"

The cunning plan for that is already going on:
$400M for covert operations in Iran, supporting
ethnic separatist groups there and generally trying
to create the same kind of ethnic/sectarian chaos
in Iran that we've got in Iraq.

In Cheney's head, everything is a zero-sum game so
if we make Iran a bloody chaos for the mullahs, that counts as a win. In the real world though, didn't
we already play that game by arming the mujahideen
against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ?
And in the long run, chaos is bad for everyone:
bad for Afghanistan, obviously; bad for the region; bad for the USA.

Posted by Richard Cownie | July 2, 2008 2:19 PM

Your argument here isn't terribly meaningful without a clear description of what you think it would mean for the war to "end" rather than "continue." Presumably, you don't think the mere fact that we have a military presence in a nation means that we are at war in or with that nation. Presumably, you don't think that for the war to end would require the casualty rate among American troops to fall to zero. So what exactly does "the end of the war in Iraq" mean?

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 2:26 PM

As I recall, George Packer initially favored the invasion of Iraq. His book, "Enemies at the Gate," essentially apologizes for that earlier endorsement. Now, he's dictating what Obama needs to do? He was wrong then, and his opinion on what would happen if a phased withdrawal takes place is, I think, as speculative as his earlier belief that the invasion was warranted. One way or the other, U.S. troops must come out, if, for no other reason, to re-fit and re-deploy to Afghanistan.

Posted by Andrew Kirby | July 2, 2008 2:28 PM

Sorry, I meant "The Assassin's Gate"

Posted by Andrew Kirby | July 2, 2008 2:33 PM

A point made before.

How is the Surge "working"?

Those who claim this are confusing a method with a goal.

The point of the Surge was never to bring violence down. It was
to bring violence down so that a stable political structure could take root and we could get the Dodge out of Hell.

Your team is getting clobbered, and in the first quarter your quarterback is sacked ten times. You put all of your players on the offensive line, and now the quarterback is only sacked twice.

You are still losing! The point of football is not to avoid harm to the quarterback, but to score points. One way to do that is to protect the quarterback - but it don't mean a thing if it don't got that swing.

Posted by Victor Von Doom | July 2, 2008 2:39 PM

C'mon. The surge MUST be working. After all, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad says that it is, and would they lie?

No idea how they square this with the GAO report that says the polar opposite. Looks like just another case of the Bush administration saying black is white and down is up.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 2:43 PM

The point of the Surge was never to bring violence down.

I keep seeing claims of this kind from surge skeptics, about the alleged "point" or "goal" or "purpose" of the surge, without any kind of substantiation or justification. Could you provide a link to a statement by the administration clearly describing the "point" of the surge? Thanks.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 2:47 PM

Instead it's "this is working so well that the war can continue indefinitely but our troops will be killed at a slower rate"-working.

This post is both too abstract and too vague for me. What are the various definitions of "working" here? What kinds of outcomes are we talking about? What rate of troop casualties and material expenditures would be sufficiently low that the human and material costs would be commensurate with the outcomes in the offing?

I think a lot of people on the Democratic side need to be much more precise about what kinds of outcomes they would like to see in Iraq over the next several years and decades, and in explaining how their current views on Iraq fit into their overall strategic vision for the Middle East, and for US policy in the Middle East. I'm losing their narrative thread. I don't think I understand where they are going.

Many Republicans think we should keep troops in Iraq more or less permanently - perhaps "indefinitely" is the preferred term - in order to impress a strategic military footprint in a very important region of the world, wield our big stick, and try to make sure that all that oil-pumping, oil-shipping and oil-selling takes place on terms that are politically and economically advantageous to us. Do Democrats support this agenda, or do they not? When I read people like Matt, or the guys at Democracy Arsenal, I can't really tell. And for those who do not support the agenda, do they oppose the agenda only because they don't think it can "work", or do they have some more general anti-imperialist objections? And if the latter, how do they square that new-found, selective Middle East anti-imperialism with their general lack of objection to the maintenance of the many, many US military presences in other strategically important regions of the world? I detect an awful lot of dancing around the large and uncomfortable issues here.

If we leave, what do we do with the bases in Iraq? Abandon them? Lease them to the Iraqis? Sell them to the Iraqis? Give them to the Iraqis? Blow them up?

Is the fantastically large and sprawling US embassy (Middle East imperial headquarters) in Iraq to be staffed and secured at the levels currently planned by the Bush administration? If so, how many troops will be necessary to secure it? If not, what do we do with it?

Are Democrats like Matt gradually maneuvering into position for their their final Iraq cave-in? I can't even tell anymore why exactly center-left Dems who reject the war do reject the war. I know why lefties think the war was wrong - they think it was a murderous crime, and act of imperial barbarousness and butchery. But the message I'm getting from more mainstream Dems is awfully cloudy. Do they repudiate the war, and seek to get out of Iraq, just because they are committed to the view that it didn't or can't "work"? Or is there some other principle in the forefront? Presumably in Matt's case it has something to do with the liberal internationalist norms of non-aggression he defends in his book. But what do those principles tell him is the correct course long after the norms have already been violated, the aggressive intervention has been carried out, and those events have receded into the past?

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 2, 2008 2:53 PM

Mixner:

I just googled Bush announce surge and found this:

"A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html

Posted by Victor Von Doom | July 2, 2008 3:14 PM

Could you provide a link to a statement by the administration clearly describing the "point" of the surge?

Here's a list of benchmarks put forth by Bush. There are 18 benchmarks of 3 types; government, security, and economic. Three were met as of January. The administration tried to change the metric midstream from accomplishment to "progress", but their definition of progress was a bad joke. The GAO report states that little actual progress has been made since.

As to the surge "working", we should look at what Petraeus said in mid-March:

BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

So in past 3 months or so, maybe suddenly things are great and the mean old MSM and the GAO are just suppressing the good news, but I wouldn't bet money on it, especially when #7 is "disarm the militias", but we actually ARMED the militias to get a reduction in violence.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 3:39 PM

. Could you provide a link to a statement by the administration clearly describing the "point" of the surge?

Yes we can.

Posted by Brad L | July 2, 2008 3:40 PM

Mixner, given how poorly informed you are on this issue, I'd suggest a nice big cup of "shut the fuck up" to go with your heaping helping of crow.

I realize you have an ideological ax to grind, but if you didn't know how the surge was sold then you are ignorant; if you couldn't figure out that selling the surge as "we add more soldiers and get less violence" would never have flown then you are just stupid. Either way, jumping to the conclusion that everyone pointing out how the surge failed to meet its goals is making up those goals shows how you put ideology before facts.

Posted by Not as stupid as Mixner | July 2, 2008 4:13 PM

Are Democrats like Matt gradually maneuvering into position for their their final Iraq cave-in? I can't even tell anymore why exactly center-left Dems who reject the war do reject the war

As a center-left type, I favor any course of action we can take that will lead to the fewest number of people dying.

Posted by person of no consequence | July 2, 2008 4:19 PM

Excellent post by Dan Kervick. I suspect p of n c's answer is fairly typical in its' inconclusiveness. After all, it's entirely possible that pulling out too quickly or too completely will lead to far more people dying than continuing to support the Iraqi government.

We did not get into a war in Iraq on the spur of the moment, or for the reasons most cited here by those who imagine the entire going-on-two-decades fiasco was ginned up by a clique of deviants in the first Bush Administration. We won't get out of it with a "just say no" policy, and neither one of the potential Presidents are likely to apply one.

Posted by robert powell | July 2, 2008 4:47 PM

"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November." That didn't happen. The Iraqi government is taking control of Anbar Province this week. It'll be the 10th province out of 18 that the Iraqi government has taken responsible for--but the first Sunni-controlled one, and the Kurdish and Shiite provinces were previously run by militias that were folded into the government. Security gains in Sunni areas are largely due to co-opting insurgents into the Sons of Iraq. The US military pays the 103,000 overwhelmingly Sunni members $300 a month, but fewer than 17,000 Sons of Iraq members have joined Iraq's security forces and 6,100 more have been approved, leaving around 80,000 unemployed armed men (again?) when the money runs out.

"To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis." That didn't happen. Talks are resuming this week. Meanwhile the Iraqi government is about to sign no-bid contracts with several U.S. and European energy companies. "We fear that any such agreements signed by Iraq's Hydrocarbon Ministry without an equitable revenue sharing agreement in place would simply add more fuel to Iraq's civil war."

"To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs." That didn't happen. Iraq spent a little over half of the $10 billion allocated in 2007. In 2005 the Iraqi government estimated the total cost of reconstructing Iraq at $200 billion.

"To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year." That didn't happen. Provincial elections are scheduled for October 2008, but could be delayed due to disputes over election law.

"And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws..." That happened, kind of. The re-Baathification law passed in January but the law isn't being implemented.

"...and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution." That didn't happen either, but it might happen in July.

Posted by kirkaracha | July 2, 2008 4:59 PM

No, we didn't assault the Iraqi people on the spur of the moment, it took months of lies by warmongering assholes like robert powell to spread lies about how vital this was to our national security. It wasn't and it isn't.

Idiots like robert powell want to pretend that the fallacy of sunk costs isn't a fallacy. They also, from all appearances, take joy in the deaths of their fellow men - so long as they are brown and far away. Not a single one of these bloodthirsty fucks has ever given a valid reason why we needed to terrorize the Iraqi people.

We have not always been at war with Oceania, no matter how many times robert powell repeats this lie.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 2, 2008 4:59 PM

[loud. crazed. laughter.]

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 2, 2008 5:03 PM

Bloodthirsty fucks who apparently take joy in the deaths of their fellow men--so long as they are brown, far away, and being killed by other brown people--don't carry much moral weight no matter how sanctimonious they are.

It wasn't a lie that Ba'athist Iraq invaded the neighbors, developed wmd's and used them to kill tens of thousands, overall massacred many times the number of people who have died in the region since 2003 (nearly all of whom were killed by other Iraqis), rocketed supertankers, torched oilfields, and bid fair to carry on with the same program if left alone. Idiots who either don't know or don't care about facts, preferring lunatic fringe cartoons to history, have not and will not have any influence on politics or policy except as a sideshow that's damaging to the prospects of the sort of policies they favor.

Posted by robert powell | July 2, 2008 5:17 PM

Here's a list of benchmarks put forth by Bush.

So, contrary to Victor Von Doom's claim that "the point of the Surge was never to bring violence down," the surge had a number of goals, and reducing violence was one of them.

There are 18 benchmarks of 3 types; government, security, and economic. Three were met as of January.

According to the report in LFC's link, 15 of the 18 benchmarks have now been met.

I'll add my support to Dan Kervick's post too. It's an elaboration of the point I was getting at in my post of 2:26pm.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 5:32 PM

One is forced to wonder if robert powell is even aware of what happened in March of 2003 that might differentiate it from, for example, March of 2002. Could he really be so clueless as to not understand the difference between the illegal restrictions on Iraq's airspace and a full scale invasion and occupation? That would make him even dumber than Mixer. A challenge for any full grown adult.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 2, 2008 5:33 PM

You know, it's almost as if robert powell is too stupid to notice that things in Iraq are actually worse than they were when Saddam Hussein was in power. I guess as a warmongering bloodthirsty fuckwit he enjoys knowing that there are fewer doctors, less hospitals, and less electricity; he appears to have no greater joy than knowing that because of him there are car bombs nearly every day; he appears to take great pride in lying about how many people died with the bootheel of George W. Bush on their necks.

Listen you half-witted maggot-ridden thug - as bad as you and yours had made Iraq up until 2003, you've made it so much worse. How many tons of chemical weapons did Saddam Hussein have in 2003? How many nuclear warheads? How many liters of poison gas? How many ICBMs?

What's that? But, way back in the past he had some stuff that had long since been destroyed? Way back in the past, mostly when he was an ally of the Regan/Bush administration, he killed lots of people?

Yeah, good job nutbar, to punish Saddam Hussein you have made Iraq a living hell for the Iraqis. Only one of us is a bloodthirsty asshole - that would be you my friend.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 2, 2008 5:41 PM

Only someone with as much ideological investment in murdering Iraqis as Mixner could claim that the "surge is working" as if there were no difference between "claiming a goal is met" and "meeting a goal."

But when one is a knee-jerk ideologue like Mixner one no longer has the option to deal with the facts (but I am amused at his shrugging off his complete ignorance that there were, in fact, documents detailing the purpose of the surge as well as his insistence that a mechanism is a goal).

Posted by Not as stupid as Mixner | July 2, 2008 5:47 PM

One more post and then I'm going to take care of things more important than a couple of idiots invested in the deaths of their fellow men.

The only humanitarian nightmare going on in Iraq was the sanctions. Bush's unprovoked assault on the Iraqi people has not taken away the sanctions. Now, in a literal sense, yes it has. In a realistic sense, not at all. Oil production (you know, what was at the heart of the sanctions - Iraq's ability to sell oil) is down, I've enumerated, repeatedly, how much worse the conditions are on the ground. And, powell's determination to underplay the deaths under Bush's occupation notwithstanding, the evidence shows that Bush's war has killed more Iraqis in five years than Saddam Hussein did in the ten preceding Bush's assault.

The only one dealing in a cartoon world is the guy whose understanding of Iraq begins and ends with Saddam bad. Yes we know that you feeble-minded goat fucker. The question always has to be "will we make it better." The answer was no, and your ham-fisted attempts to pretend otherwise just demonstrate how little connection you have with humankind.

If any nation had acted like Bush's America and assaulted another nation every single Mixner and powell would be up in arms decrying the "new Hitler" telling us how this monster needed to be stopped before he tried to take over even more oil producing nations. Hell, that's why powell imagines we have always been at war with Oceania.

Hell, if any nation were in the dire straights Iraq is in because some bullying nation had invaded and occupied them I would be demanding that a multinational force be assembled to kick them out of their client state.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 2, 2008 6:07 PM

Mixner aid... According to the report in LFC's link, 15 of the 18 benchmarks have now been met.

Uh, just how does 18 unmet minus 3 met = 15 met? Sounds like "fuzzy math" to me.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 6:08 PM

Once again, Iraq is no longer relevant.

The US is going to get pushed out of Iraq either this year or within the next two years.

1) Iran war starts - US gets pushed out in three months when the Shia turn on us.

2) No Iran war. Provincial and parliamentary elections in 2009 sweep Maliki from power, install nationalists who order the US out within a year, two at the most.

I don't see a third option here, although I suppose it's possible the status quo will continue somehow since neither the Iran war nor the elections have happened yet.

And since they're trying to postpone the provincial elections to 2009 now, maybe such elections will never be held and Maliki will just assume dictatorial powers - so we have a new "Saddam" we can work with support by US military power directly.

Or maybe, as some people in Iraq and some analysts believe, the US is now switching to the Sunni side again and intend to reinstall a Sunni "strongman" directly supported by the US military, since Maliki seems to be too much in the pocket of Iran.

Dan Kervick: "I detect an awful lot of dancing around the large and uncomfortable issues here."

That is what Matt DOES for a living. It took me MONTHS to get him to answer two lousy questions on Iran. When he did, he disingenuously said he didn't know what they were even though I EMAILED them to him as well as quoting them repeatedly in many of my posts on the subject.

Matt and the rest of the Dems just don't have any real ideas on what is happening, will happen, or should happen in Iraq, let alone Iran.

Part of that is justifiable: we shouldn't CARE what happens in Iraq as long we get OUT. Abandon the bases, abandon the Embassy. No American is going to be safe in Iraq for the next two generations after what we've done there, anyway.

It's not a case of "we broke it, we own it", it's a case of "it's broken, throw it out."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 2, 2008 6:15 PM

RSH, you certainly are right about one thing, and that is the fact that most Iraqis want us OUT.

Instead, Bush is trying to ensure that a "friendly" gov't is put in place, even if it's incompetent. (Maybe especially if it's incompetent.) He WANTS them to be dependent upon us so that huge numbers of troops stick around.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out when they try to hold elections while simultaneously suppressing Moqtada al-Sadr's followers.

Posted by LFC | July 2, 2008 6:24 PM

LFC,

Uh, just how does 18 unmet minus 3 met = 15 met? Sounds like "fuzzy math" to me.

Your link says: "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year." "All but three of 18" is 15.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 6:36 PM

LFC,

RSH, you certainly are right about one thing, and that is the fact that most Iraqis want us OUT.

Do you have any recent polling data on that?

Critics of the war might be just a teeny bit more credible if they didn't constantly present their guesses and wishful thinking as if it were empirical fact.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 6:48 PM

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is a 'post turtle.'"

Not being familiar with the term, the pollster asked him what a 'post turtle' was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle.'''

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the pollster's face, so he continued to explain.

"You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumb ass put him up there to begin with."

Posted by chris ford | July 2, 2008 8:53 PM

Chris Ford with his usual racism . . .

Posted by SqueakyRat | July 2, 2008 9:46 PM

To the extent possible I think we ought to stick with the facts as they can be determined. It seems entirely plausible that most Iraqis, like most Americans, want us gone. But almost every informed observer I've seen now agrees that there's a strong consensus over there (and over here) that this shouldn't happen before the place is stabilized--the stakes are just too high. Polling data from Iraq is dodgy, but they have the most representative and legitimate government in the Arab world. Let's see what they say. Isolationists don't see any point, but they are a tiny minority. We got into Iraq in the first place because we had vital interests there, and those interests have only gotten greater.

No amount of wishful thinking is going to make Iraq just go away. Hysterical ranting that ignores or downplays the crimes of Ba'athist Iraq while exaggerating that unfortunate country's current plight only serves to further discredit the ranters. It's pretty clear from the historical record that Saddam's reign of terror killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of thousands of the neighbors' citizens while utterly destroying the nation's infrastructure and economy. Currently Iraqis have much better nutrition, much more money, much more freedom, and much more hope for the future. Over eighty percent of Iraq's population is Kurdish and Shi'ia. Anyone who says they were better off under Saddam can clearly be disregarded. These Iraqis certainly don't say that.

"The Surge" is working in the sense of making progress in stabilizing Iraq for a variety of reasons, most of which don't have anything to do with the exact number of US troops on the ground. In my view Obama will be even more circumspect about a quick withdrawal than McCain would be--he'll be under far more pressure to avoid appearing "weak", and won't have an opposition-controlled Congress to limit his flexibility. He knows that if he gets Iraq and Iran right, he gets re-elected and can make stirring speeches at the UN, thrill the crowds in Brussels and Paris, and shore up his party. But if he gets Iraq and Iran wrong, he's Jimmy Carter II, and the Dems will wander the political wilderness for another generation. It's not hard to guess what he's going to do in Iraq, and quick withdrawal doesn't seem likely to be it.

Posted by robert powell | July 3, 2008 2:14 AM

I found Packer's New Yorker piece painful reading. For the war, apologizes for being for the war once it becomes unpopular, now buying the surge story line hook, line and sinker. This is a journalist? More like a weather vane.

Chris Ford meant to say that Bush is a post turtle, of course. That would actually make sense.

Posted by STS | July 3, 2008 2:19 AM

Squeaky Rat

There is nothing racist about Ford's post. It is a very accurate description of Obama.

Posted by Karlene | July 3, 2008 2:47 AM

Mixner, for recent polling data saying most Iraqis want us out: see page 48 of this Brookings Iraq Index http://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index.pdf

For an intelligent, non-ideological account of the surge and suggestions for a way forward, see this senate testimony by Robert Malley http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5389&l=1

Interestingly Robert Malley was apparently associated with the Obama campaign, but some far-right groups scared Obama into disassociating himself from him.

Posted by Andrew | July 3, 2008 4:25 AM

Latest ABC Iraqi poll was in March, 2008:

ABC/BBC/ARD/NHK POLL - IRAQ FIVE YEARS LATER: WHERE THINGS STAND
http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

While a lot of Iraqis think things have gotten better in terms of security, the views of the US are still pretty negative.

Similarly, while there’s been a big drop in the number who cite security as their own main problem, 50 percent still volunteer it as the nation’s main problem overall – little changed from 56 percent in August. One in four Iraqis still report suicide attacks, sectarian fighting and other violence in their own area in just the past six months. And the provision of basic services has barely budged; 88 percent lack adequate electricity.

Much of the improvement since August is driven by Baghdad and Anbar provinces, focal points of the surge. Seventy-one percent in Anbar, and fewer in Baghdad but still 43 percent, now rate local security positively – up from zero in both locales last year. While a dramatic gain, most in Baghdad, home to a quarter of Iraqis, still say security is bad – a reflection of continued, albeit reduced, violence there.

CHALLENGES – Challenges remain broad and deep. Beyond their own lives, most Iraqis, 55 percent, still say things are going badly for the country, even if that’s down from a record 78 percent in August. Violence remains common, particularly in the cities; local car bombs or suicide attacks, just within the past six months, are reported by 45 percent in Baghdad, 51 percent in Kirkuk and 39 percent in Mosul.

Living conditions for many remain dire, with sizable majorities reporting a lack of electricity, fuel, clean water, medical care and sufficient jobs. Improvement in all these has been modest at best. Six in 10 say they can’t live where they choose without facing persecution, although this, too, is well down from its peak.

Sectarian differences remain vast. While more than six in 10 Shiites and seven in 10 Kurds say their own lives are going well, that drops to a third in the Sunni Arab minority. Eighty-three percent of Sunnis rate national conditions negatively. And while half of Shiites and six in 10 Kurds expect their children’s lives to be better than their own, a mere 12 percent of Sunnis share that most basic hope.

Ratings of the national government and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki remain weak – 43 and 40 percent positive, respectively – and sharply split by sectarian group. Just half think legislators are willing to compromise on key issues. The country divides on the state of Sunni-Shiite relations, and Arab-Kurdish relations are rated more negatively.

In a telling result, one question asked Iraqis whether this is a good time for the millions who have fled the country to return. Forty-five percent say yes, now is the time for those Iraqis to come back – but 54 percent say it’s not. (Not surprisingly, where security is rated positively, Iraqis are 20 points more likely to say it’s time to return.)

THE U.S. – Views of the United States, while still broadly negative, have moderated in some respects. Just shy of half, 49 percent, now say it was right for the U.S.-led coalition to have invaded, up by 12 points from August; the previous high was 48 percent in the first ABC News poll in Iraq in February 2004.

Similarly, the number of Iraqis who call it "acceptable” to attack U.S. forces has declined for the first time in these polls, down to 42 percent after peaking at 57 percent in August

Even with a 15-point drop, however, that’s still a lot of Iraqis to endorse such violence. (Just 4 percent, by contrast, call it acceptable to attack Iraqi government forces.)

Sunni Arabs, dispossessed by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, are a good example. In August 93 percent of Sunnis called it acceptable to attack U.S. forces. Today, that’s down to 62 percent – a dramatic decline, but one that still leaves six in 10 Sunnis on the side of anti-U.S. attacks.

Other measures are a little better, if not good. Just 20 percent of Iraqis express confidence in U.S. forces, up slightly from 14 percent last summer. Just 29 percent say U.S. forces have done a good job in Iraq, up 10 points. Only 27 percent say the presence of U.S. forces is making overall security better in Iraq, up 9 points; 61 percent say it’s making things worse.

Indeed, on a basic level, the presence of foreign forces remains unwelcome: Just 26 percent of Iraqis support having U.S. and coalition troops in their country, up a scant 5 points. But this doesn’t mean most favor immediate withdrawal. Well under half, 38 percent, say the United States should leave now, down from a peak 47 percent in August.

One reason is that Iraqis are divided on what might follow U.S. withdrawal; 46 percent think it would make security better, but the rest say it would make security worse or leave it as it is now. Those who think immediate withdrawal would improve security are twice as likely to support it.

Moreover, despite their antipathy, big majorities see a continued role for the United States. From two-thirds to 80 percent of Iraqis support future U.S. efforts conducting security operations against al Qaeda or foreign jihadis in Iraq; providing military training, weapons and reconstruction aid; and assisting in security vis-à-vis Iran and Turkey. The most popular of these is a U.S. role confronting al Qaeda.

At the same time, few give the United States direct credit for security gains. When those who see security as having improved are asked who deserves the most credit, Iraqi institutions lead the way – 26 percent cite the national government, 18 percent the police, 13 percent the army. Just 4 percent mention the United States or U.S. forces.

Direct ratings of the surge likely reflect the United States’ general unpopularity. Iraqis by 53-36 percent say the surge has made security worse, not better, in the areas where it’s occurred; that, however, has improved sharply, from 70-18 percent in August.

Similarly, Iraqis by 49-30 percent say the surge has made security worse in the rest of the country (it was 68-12 percent in August); by 43-21 percent say it’s worsened conditions for political dialogue (70-10 percent in August); by 44-25 percent say it’s worsened the ability of the Iraqi government to do its work (65-12 percent in August) and by 42-22 percent say it’s worsened the pace of economic development (67-6 percent in August).

These, again, have to be viewed through the filter of general antipathy toward the United States. What’s notable is the change in the number of Iraqis who say the surge has made any of these conditions worse – down by 17 to 27 points.

THE COUNCILS and THE SUNNIS – Moreover, an integral part of the surge strategy – the creation of U.S.-funded and -equipped “Awakening Councils” to provide local security – is generally popular. The councils are better-rated than the United States, local leaders, local militias and even the Iraqi government.

Fifty-six percent of Iraqis express confidence in the councils, compared with 49 percent in the national government of Iraq, 47 percent in local leaders, 22 percent in local militias and 20 percent in U.S. forces. The councils attract confidence from 73 percent of Sunni Arabs – generally the most alienated Iraqis – as well as from 60 percent of Shiites. These councils began in Sunni Anbar province, where confidence in them peaks, at 88 percent; there now are both Sunni- and Shiite-dominated versions. (They’re viewed far
more dimly by Kurds.)

While just 27 percent of Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making security better overall, nearly twice as many, 51 percent, say the Awakening Councils are making security better. Just 16 percent say the councils are making security worse, vs. 61 percent who say that about U.S. forces. And Iraqis almost unanimously reject attacks on Awakening Council leaders; 94 percent call these unacceptable...

Another challenge is the strength of militias, especially in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite Sadr City area: There 70 percent express confidence in the local militia, far more than the level of militia support in the rest of the country (20 percent) and greater than the level of confidence among Sadr City residents in either the national government (55 percent) or the Iraqi army (42 percent).

All in all, it's still mostly a negative for the US.

And we must remember that the "man in the street" isn't the guy controlling the guns. The Sunni and Shia militias and Iran are. And all of them - as well as the senior clerics - want the US OUT. The only ones who don't are those who know their very lives depend on the US protecting them.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 3, 2008 5:09 AM

Thanks to RSH for providing some data. It's not facts, but it can be helpful in determining what some facts may be. Obviously, I interpret them differently.

Looks to me like an unmistakably positive trend, for Iraqis and Americans. Next up, provincial elections.

Posted by robert powell | July 3, 2008 6:00 AM

Per above cited polling, residents of Sadr City show confidence in the national government of Iraq, in a 55% majority, that's about double the approval rating Americans show either Bush or, with even lower numbers, the Democrat Congress.

Posted by robert powell | July 3, 2008 6:20 AM

robert powell, by his own admission, "interprets facts differently." That's a polite way to put it. He's so fucking stupid that he doesn't get the difference between occasional (illegal) acts of war, and a full scale invasion. He's also so fucking stupid that he thinks the Iraqis should be grateful to the people who have provided them with level of violence far in excess of what they had under their previous tyrant.

That's because for robert powell, facts are stupid things and slaughtering brown people far away is "entertainment." Which makes him not only stupid but a sick fuck.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 3, 2008 11:19 AM

Presumably, you don't think that for the war to end would require the casualty rate among American troops to fall to zero. So what exactly does "the end of the war in Iraq" mean?

It means a reduction of the casualty rate among American troops should fall to the same levels that it is at in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, the three places Sen. McCain always compares our Iraq occupation to.

And then we should still get out, because even under the most rosy scenario, having American troops based in Iraq is a terrible idea.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 3, 2008 2:19 PM

Powell picks out every positive uptick, which, as I pointed out, is totally irrelevant to the big picture - which is that the Iraqis want the US OUT - and even if - in fact, depending on whether - security gets better, the MORE they will want the US out. The only justification some Iraqis have for keeping the US in Iraq is that some think it might get worse if the US leaves - and the politicians need US protection (except for the ones working for Iran.) So the better security gets - as long as the Iraqis think either the Sunni or Shia militias or the Iraqi government can protect them - the sooner the Iraqis will want the US gone.

That should be obvious to anybody with a brain, which of course excludes lying assholes like Powell.

But none of that alters the other fact the polls show - that no "reconciliation" has taken place and the underlying conflict between Sunni and Shia remains unsolved.

Powell starts babbling about the provincial elections as if he thinks they'll all go his way. Dream on. Estimates are the Sadrists will take sixty percent of the vote at this point. And the Sunnis intend to take power in their provinces.

The end result will be a nationalist win in the parliamentary elections next year - and Maliki will either join them in ordering the US out or be swept aside.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 3, 2008 5:12 PM

I notice that the bloodthisty prick robert powell never bothered to respond to the fact that in Iraq circa 2002 the only humanitarian crisis was the sanctions he supported. I also notice that all of his arguments for murdering Iraqis revolve around events more than a decade prior to Bush's criminal assault on the people of Iraq.

The only way for the warmongering asshole robert powell's arguments to make sense is if Bush was attacking Iraq with a time machine. This is almost as stupid an idea as powell suggesting that he's the humanitarian here because he supported the direct slaughter of Iraqis - after a decade of support for the indirect slaughter.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 4, 2008 2:51 AM

Oh, and for those who want to know what real concern for human life looks like $1/4 Billion spent looking for three people. Me, I think perhaps that's a bit excessive. But how many children will die in Iraq this week because thickwitted warmongering thugs can't get over their bloodlust?

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 4, 2008 2:56 AM

Facts are wonderful things.

I didn't support the sanctions regime, nor did I support leaving Saddam Hussein in power in 1991, or calling for the Iraqis to "rise up" then watching them get slaughtered. I certainly don't pay any attention to hysterical ranting about the good ol' days under Saddam by "humanitarians", or pretend that I know what all the Iraqi people think.

The provincial elections will be another step towards full Iraqi independence. I welcome them, and recognize that having them go "my way", whatever that is, is a ridiculous concept. All the wild speculation is marginally entertaining, but tells us more about those doing the speculation than about Iraqis. Elections produce facts as well as speculation, and I'm quite content to wait for them before jumping to conclusions.

Posted by robert powell | July 4, 2008 6:10 AM