Iraq and Afghanistan

Juan Cole leads us to consider some recent polls. A recent survey by the British Opinion Research Business (ORB) showed that Iraqis had remarkable confidence in spite of all that has happened. Support for Prime Minister Maliki was much more widespread than had been expected. In their polls, increase in support compared with September was quite dramatic. Not surprisingly more Shi'a preferred the present system to Saddam's, yet the difference was not as great as might have been expected (51% of Sunnis preferred the Baathist regime; 66% preferred Maliki). Only 15% of Shiites believed they were in a civil war, while 40% of Sunnis believed this. (I would note that this was a countrywide poll, and many of those reported as Sunni were in fact Sunni Kurds, a fact that should temper our surprise at the results.) Yet it might be discouraging to the surge folks that 53% nationwide thought that the security situation would improve after foreign troops left, while only 26% thought it would get worse.

According to Cole, the most recent USA Today poll showed that 83% of Shiites and 97% of Sunni Arabs oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq; 75% of Kurds support them. By more than 3 to 1, Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making the security situation worse. The respondents want the foreigners out, but only 35% want them to leave immediately, perhaps six months to a year would be best. 40% of Shiites want a theocracy governed by Islamic law. 58% want a strongman to rule. Even 34% of Kurds reject democracy. This seems to contrast remarkably with the growing support for Maliki, who is, after all, the first person to come to power by a more or less democratic process in a long time. I think the association of a foreign occupation force with "democracy" has given the system a bad name for the moment. In any event, few Iraqis are likely to be willing to fight for democracy. What they are willing to fight for, other than security, is still up in the air.