26% SUNNI:

Iraqis: We're not in civil war (Chicago Sun-Times, March 19, 2007)

Only 27 percent of Iraqis believe their country is in a civil war -- an issue that has roiled American politics.

Among Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority, a mere 15 percent thought the nation was experiencing civil war, a new poll says. [...]

• • 49% of those questioned preferred living under the current government to living under Saddam Hussein. Only 26% said things had been better with Saddam.

• • 53% of Iraqis think security would improve with a pullout by U.S.-led forces. Some 26% think it would get worse, the Times said.

MORE:
IRAQ YEAR 4: PRESERVING VICTORY (Amir Taheri, 3/19/07, NY Post)

A quick checklist shows that the war achieved all its objectives.

š Saddam's regime was toppled.

š Its machinery of war and internal repression was dismantled.

š Decades of one-party rule - the "Republic of Fear" - came to an end.

š Political power was taken from the brutal and corrupt ruling elite and transferred to the Iraqi people as a whole.

š Iraqis discovered such things as freedom of expression, media without censorship and a plethora of political parties to choose from.

š For the first time, the Iraqi people were able to write their own Constitution, hold their own general elections, choose their own government and start building their own institutions.

Not surprisingly, such achievements did not go unchallenged: The new emerging Iraq came under attack from many different quarters almost immediately.

The 'Surge' Is Succeeding (Robert Kagan, March 11, 2007, Washington Post)

Iraqi bloggers Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, widely respected for their straight talk, say that "early signs are encouraging." The first impact of the "surge," they write, was psychological. Both friends and foes in Iraq had been convinced, in no small part by the American media, that the United States was preparing to pull out. When the opposite occurred, this alone shifted the dynamic.

Only the psychology really matters. Pretend to be the strong horse and you are, even though the surge is cover for the withdrawal.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 19, 2007 7:03 AM