Posted on 09/11/2003 9:18:46 AM PDT by GulliverSwift
Publication Date: September 10, 2003 |
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America, some say, is hobbled in its policies toward Iraq by not knowing much about what Iraqis really think. Are they on the side of radical Islamists? What kind of government would they like? What is their attitude toward the U.S.? Do the Shiites hate us? Could Iraq become another Iran under the ayatollahs? Are the people in the Sunni triangle the real problem? Up to now we've only been able to guess. We've relied on anecdotal temperature-takings of the Iraqi public, and have been at the mercy of images presented to us by the press. We all know that journalists have a bad-news bias: 10,000 schools being rehabbed isn't news; one school blowing up is a weeklong feeding frenzy. And some of us who have spent time recently in Iraq--I was an embedded reporter during the war--have been puzzled by the postwar news and media imagery, which is much more negative than what many individuals involved in reconstructing Iraq have been telling us. Well, finally we have some evidence of where the truth may lie. Working with Zogby International survey researchers, The American Enterprise magazine has conducted the first scientific poll of the Iraqi public. Given the state of the country, this was not easy. Security problems delayed our intrepid fieldworkers several times. We labored at careful translations, regional samplings and survey methods to make sure our results would accurately reflect the views of Iraq's multifarious, long-suffering people. We consulted Eastern European pollsters about the best way to elicit honest answers from those conditioned to repress their true sentiments. Conducted in August, our survey was necessarily limited in scope, but it reflects a nationally representative sample of Iraqi views, as captured in four disparate cities: Basra (Iraq's second largest, home to 1.7 million people, in the far south), Mosul (third largest, far north), Kirkuk (Kurdish-influenced oil city, fourth largest) and Ramadi (a resistance hotbed in the Sunni triangle). The results show that the Iraqi public is more sensible, stable and moderate than commonly portrayed, and that Iraq is not so fanatical, or resentful of the U.S., after all.
This new evidence on Iraqi opinion suggests the country is manageable. If the small number of militants conducting sabotage and murder inside the country can gradually be eliminated by American troops (this is already happening), then the mass of citizens living along the Tigris-Euphrates Valley are likely to make reasonably sensible use of their new freedom. "We will not forget it was the U.S. soldiers who liberated us from Saddam," said Abid Ali, an auto repair shop owner in Sadr City last month--and our research shows that he's not unrepresentative. None of this is to suggest that the task ahead will be simple. Inchoate anxiety toward the U.S. showed up when we asked Iraqis if they thought the U.S. would help or hurt Iraq over a five-year period. By 50 percent to 36 percent they chose hurt over help. This is fairly understandable; Iraqis have just lived through a war in which Americans were (necessarily) flinging most of the ammunition. These experiences may explain why women (who are more antimilitary in all cultures) show up in our data as especially wary of the U.S. right now. War is never pleasant, though U.S. forces made heroic efforts to spare innocents in this one, as I illustrate with firsthand examples in my book about the battles. Evidence of the comparative gentleness of this war can be seen in our poll. Less than 30 percent of our sample of Iraqis knew or heard of anyone killed in the spring fighting. Meanwhile, fully half knew some family member, neighbor or friend who had been killed by Iraqi security forces during the years Saddam held power. Perhaps the ultimate indication of how comfortable Iraqis are with America's aims in their region came when we asked how long they would like to see American and British forces remain in their country: Six months? One year? Two years or more? Two thirds of those with an opinion urged that the coalition troops should stick around for at least another year. We're making headway in a benighted part of the world. Hang in there, America. Karl Zinsmeister is editor in chief of The American Enterprise magazine and holder of the J.B. Fuqua chair at the American Enterprise Institute. |
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The media really p(*&es me off. They and the Demoncrats want Iraq to look as bad as possible, and they run the very real risk of pulling off a coup in America if they get away with this persistent, fabricated negativism.
If this poll were common knowledge, there's no way they nine dwarfs at the democrap debate could get away with what they said about Bush's handling of Iraq. But then again, who decides if something becomes common knowledge?
"How would you say things are going for the U.S. in its efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq? Would you say things are going very well, somewhat well, somewhat badly, or very badly?" |
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Very Well |
Somewhat Well |
Somewhat Badly |
Very Badly |
Don't Know |
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% | % | % | % | % | ||
8/26-28/03 | 5 | 46 | 31 | 16 | 2 | |
8/11-12/03 | 6 | 47 | 28 | 13 | 6 | |
7/03 | 6 | 54 | 25 | 11 | 4 | |
5/03 | 11 | 61 | 19 | 5 | 4 | |
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This poll from pollingreport.com shows a steady decline in public opinion about what's going on in Iraq. The media's working hard, and they're succeeding. |
Of course, when the media interviews someone, they don't care if it's representative of the populace or not. They try to find some idiot who says, "I hate America. Look what they have done. Under Saddam, I made a billion dinares a week. Now I have nothing. Death to America."
Of course, cynical Iraqis know that they can get on TV if they say outlandish things.
Yup. I had a friend at the battle of Al-Nasiriyah. He said the Iraqis thought they were now the 51st state, and they were quite happy about it.
Last year the media was obsessing about corporate corruption. I don't think they really cared, they just wanted Bush to look bad with Enron. That picked up steam, and the media were able to sway public opinion, but then the Washington sniper thing happened, as well as the annivesary of Sep. 11.
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