Getting Real About Iraq

I would guess that public opinion on Iraq among the troops mirrors society as a whole, and so I always greet stories that try to pinpoint troop morale with a skeptical eye. Still, it's clear that when war defenders make blanket statements about morale being sky-high in Iraq, this angers some because it gives the impression of the military being used as a political prop. And clearly, the stresses of multiple deployments and returning to the same village to clear it of terrorists time and again can be an enervating exercise, particuarly for our National Guard that didn't really sign up for this kind of work, which may be why you get standing ovations when you call for troop withdrawals in front of them (Nicolas Sarkozy called for a troop withdrawal from Iraq as well today, which will maybe temper these statements from the likes of Kruathammer that Old Europe is somehow becoming more conservative, defined as "in agreement with the Bush Administration on everything.")

Really the only public opinion that matters is Iraqi public opinion, and while anecdotally all you hear from surge supporters is that the Iraqis want us to stay, the data suggests something far different:

We learn in this report that a whopping 6 percent of Iraqis have "a great deal" of confidence in US and British forces. An additional 12 percent have "quite a lot." 30 Percent say they have "not very much." And 52 percent say "none at all." The Iraqi police, the Iraqi army, local political leaders, the national government, and the local militia are all more popular than the American military. A clear majority thinks the US government, rather than the Iraqi government, is controlling the country. 46 percent of Iraqis "strongly oppose" the presence of American troops in Iraq and 32 percent are somewhat opposed. 69 percent say the American presence is making things worse. More Iraqis see Iran as having a positive influence on their country than see the US that way. For that matter, more Iraqis see Saudi Arabia as having a positive influence. More Iraqis see Russia as having a positive influence. 51 percent say attacks on coalition forces are acceptable. More people blame US forces (31 percent) or President Bush (9 percent) for violence in Iraq than blame al-Qaeda (18 percent) or Iran (7 pecent).

I don't say, of course, that the Iraqi public is correct about all of this, but that's what they think. Under the circumstances, I just don't see how a counterinsurgency mission could possibly succeed. If we had just recently invaded the country and were facing initial skepticism then, sure, maybe better policies would win people over. But we're talking about the reverse. The initial reception we got was open-minded. That was years ago. Now the US military is very, very, very much disliked in Iraq and it ought to leave and go places (home, Kuwait, Germany, Turkey) where it's welcome.

Long ago "winning hearts and minds" was simply written off as a goal and thought as a de facto product of improving security. But these numbers suggest that it matters little who is providing for the Iraqis so long as it's being done under occupation, and anyway security is not really improving, in the consensus of Kevin Drum, who has really taken a hard look at the data. The Sunni revolt in Al Anbar started before the surge, and once Al Qaeda in Iraq is dismantled there's no reason to suggest that they will be folded into the political infrastructure of society; in fact we may be arming them to eventually turn on the Shiites and expand the civil war. Death toll figures are down from their peaks but up compared to last summer, and considering the consistent pattern of drops in fatalities in the summer heat, it cannot be said that the surge has made a major difference there. Indeed throughout the country, regions are getting more insecure, as fighters from Baghdad fan out into the countryside. And problems with the Iraqi police, the crumbling infrastructure, political rivalries such as those in the south (an internecine Shiite civil war) and in Kirkuk (where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are battling for control of the important oil city), and the still-robust insurgency persist. And this is a key point:

Reports of progress are considerably undermined by the apparently growing consensus that the U.S. will need to keep a significant military presence in Iraq for the better part of the next decade. This is hard to square with genuine confidence that the surge is reducing violence significantly. Link.

Great work by Kevin in tracking all of this down and following the facts wherever they take him. What we have is a lot of happy talk turning an inch of daylight into a mile of military progress. And it's just not there. The same with troop morale. And the same with the viewpoints of the Iraqi people. We are being spun - and since some Republican spinmeisters are attempting to pull off a lobbyist-administered coup of the Prime Minister I suppose that's apt.

I don't think the American people are totally buying it, but in the media there's this sense that you're not serious unless you acknowledge progress on any or all of these fronts. This is the bullying of war-defending groupthink instead of a sober look at reality. So if that denotes high seriousness, call me a dirty fucking hippie.