What the hell is going on in Iraq? I have been reading every article I can find and I still don't know if they hate us, if their country is going to explode or if sweet, delicious democracy is making a foothold.
Most articles that profess to know the opinion of the Iraqi people include a subtle trick: the unrepresentative quote. Let's hear what Falah has to say about the Americans: \I hate them. I'd like to bomb them. When I see them, I spit on them."" Whoa! However, in another article from the same day we have Abed Ali saying, ""We will never forget it was the U.S. soldiers who liberated us from Saddam."" There are bombings, but there are also babies being named after George Bush. Both are extreme acts, though we only tolerate one of them. Imagine how easy it would be to paint our country as virulently anti-Bush by quoting a few people on State Street.
To replace the falsification of the misrepresentative quote, we utilize the lifeblood of American politics-the slightly more factual random poll. Zogby International and the American Enterprise magazine have just completed the first scientific poll of Iraq. Obviously, this poll is not perfect, but it is undoubtedly better than anything else we have to gauge Iraqi opinion. ""The results show,"" Karl Zinsmeister says in The Wall Street Journal, ""that the Iraqi public is more sensible, stable and moderate than commonly portrayed and that Iraq is not so fanatical, or resentful of the United States, after all.""
Over 70 percent of Iraqis polled think their lives and their country will both be better in the next five years. I doubt a similar poll in the United States would find anywhere near this much optimism. In addition, 32 percent of respondents believe their lives will become much better. This contrasts with the much smaller seven percent of respondents who believe their lives will be much worse.
After the war, I was very concerned that Iraq would adopt the Islamic government of its neighbor Iran. Anyone who saw footage of Shiites cutting their heads with machetes to mourn the passing of one of their holy leaders surely shared this concern. Surprisingly, only one-third of the people polled want an Islamic government-60 percent say no. What about the self-flagellating Shiites? They are even less likely to support an Islamic government, with 66 percent saying no and only 27 percent saying yes.
Iraq is actually more secular than is usually portrayed in our media. The pollsters asked the Iraqis how often they attended Friday prayer in the previous month. Shockingly, 43 percent of the respondents said ""never.""
Iraqis overwhelmingly believe, three-to-one, that politics, not economics, will be the toughest part of rebuilding their country. Democracy is still seen as something that works in the West, but less likely to work in Iraq-only four of 10 Iraqis felt that democracy is feasible in Iraq. Interestingly, among people age 18-29, women and Shiites are much more positive about the prospects of democracy. Though, when asked to choose what kind of government would be appropriate for Iraq, the largest percent of respondents, only 37 percent, chose the U.S. model. Hopefully, we can help foster confidence in democracy by handing over more governmental responsibility to Iraqi citizens.
The ultimate question now is how long we should stay in Iraq. This is also a good measure of how much Iraqis trust us. France has suggested that the United States withdraw by the end of the year. I recently also saw that our intrepid peace movement is still trying to stop the war, which presumably means ending the occupation. However, leaving too early would be an unmitigated disaster and it does not reflect the desire of the Iraqi people. Two-thirds of Iraqis polled wanted troops to stay for at least one more year.
We must stay in Iraq. The Bush administration has finally stopped misleading the country about the cost of the war. Iraq's oil cannot pay for the reconstruction and we cannot, nor should we, leave Iraq by the end of this year. We must resign ourselves to being there for a long time. However, we should try to be as optimistic about the future of Iraq as the Iraqis.
