Iraqis Glad Saddam Gone
The Times of London points to the results of a new poll that show Iraqis overwhelmingly favor the current government, warts and all, over the regime of Saddam Hussein. The poll will be completely ignored by the anti-war crowd, of course. Except to heap abuse on it. But the results are actually kind of interesting.
DESPITE sectarian slaughter, ethnic cleansing and suicide bombs, an opinion poll conducted on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq has found a striking resilience and optimism among the inhabitants.
The poll, the biggest since coalition troops entered Iraq on March 20, 2003, shows that by a majority of two to one, Iraqis prefer the current leadership to Saddam Hussein’s regime, regardless of the security crisis and a lack of public services.
The survey, published today, also reveals that contrary to the views of many western analysts, most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war.
Officials in Washington and London are likely to be buoyed by the poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), a respected British market research company that funded its own survey of 5,019 Iraqis over the age of 18.
The poll shows a marked increase in confidence since the announcement of the surge. Longtime readers know I am not a big one for automatically taking a single poll as the gospel truth. The trends of polls are more informative than a single datapoint. (Movies rather than snapshots, if you will.) But there is a trend here that shows confidence is on the rise. That is worth thinking about. If the Iraqis begin to see that the terrorists are not a good bet for the long term, support for them will erode rapidly.
UPDATE: Others: Don Surber, Captain's Quarters, Wake up America, NewsBusters, Outside The Beltway, Gateway Pundit, Strata-Sphere, Harry's Place, TigerHawk, PoliPundit, Jules Crittenden, Dean's World, Protein Wisdom,
