On Monday The New York Times reported the results of an opinion poll on Iraq that it and CBS News conducted just before General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker gave their reports to Congress this week. Here are some of the more interesting results*:
Asked who they trusted the most to resolve the war in Iraq, 5% chose the Bush administration, 21% said Congress, and 68% said the military commanders.
62% said the war was a mistake, and 59% said it was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs.
53% said they did not think that Iraq would ever become a stable democracy. 70% said they did not think the current Iraqi government was doing all it could to bring stability to the country.
64% favored establishing a timetable for a 2008 withdrawal.
Presented with three possible plans, 56% supported reducing troops in Iraq, but leaving some in place to train Iraqi forces, fight terrorists and protect American diplomats, 22% favored a complete withdrawal in the next year, and 20% favored keeping the same number of troops ‘until there is a stable democracy in Iraq.’
Just under half favored a decrease or withdrawal of all troops even if the result was ‘more mass killings’ among Iraq’s ethnic groups, but 30% favored a decrease or withdrawal if Iraq would become a base of operations for terrorists as a result.
On their face, these numbers might seem to be contradictory, but let me suggest an interpretation which reconciles them. First, people are fed up with how things have been going in Iraq. They don’t think the Bush administration has done a good job, and they don’t think the al-Miliki government has either.
However, in spite of all this unhappiness, these numbers do not support the position of those who have been against the war since before we went in and want us to get out now. Rather, what people are saying is that they are upset because we are not winning. The reason 62% say the war was a mistake is because, until recently, our leaders have done a terrible job of fighting it (which is why only 5% trust the Bush administration to resolve the situation in Iraq).
The fact that people are upset about losing, as opposed to being in Iraq, can be seen by the fact only 22% favor a complete withdrawal now. Virtually the same number, 20%, want to stay and win, and 56% are willing to stay to fight terrorists and train Iraqis. Given how badly things have gone until recently, the fact 56% are willing to stay to fight terrorists and train Iraqis and 20% want to stay to win, is amazing.
But this should not be surprising. This matches where Americans were in Vietnam, at least until the very end. In spite of modern myth to the contrary, I would argue that even in 1972, the American people did not want to get out of Vietnam no matter what. They wanted to leave but in the right way. After all, if they had wanted to get out immediately, there was a candidate running for President in 1972 who was willing to do that. But George McGovern got less than 40% of the popular vote and won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
In the same way, what Americans do not like about Iraq is, until recently, we have been losing. When reports appeared in August indicating General Petraeus’s new counter-insurgency strategy was having some success, public opinion started to shift. The "Out Now" people do not care, but middle America does. If middle America can see some success and an expectation we can achieve more, they will support our efforts in Iraq.
The problem the Bush Administration has is nobody believes them (see the poll). But if the military commanders (see the poll) show us we can still achieve a reasonable set of objectives in Iraq, we will support the effort. But this will not be done with fancy speeches and big claims. It can only be done by progress on the ground in Iraq. If the American people see progress, they will support the effort. We just want to win.
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* I have not tried to use quotation marks to show which parts of the article I quoted directly as opposed to those parts that I paraphrased. If this is plagiarism, I apologize.
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