ABC/Time Poll on Iraq
The full tabulation of the new ABC News/Time, et al., poll on Iraq is in pdf format on the web. Although a lot of Iraqis are optimistic about the future, and a lot say things aren't going so badly for them personally, their view of where the country is at presently is quite dark. In fact, these attitudes are almost the opposite of the impression we are given of Iraqi attitudes in most of the US mainstream press.
Let's look at some key findings:
Things are going badly in Iraq today: 52% (30% say "very badly").
There has been no improvement since Saddam fell or things are worse: 60%
It was wrong for the US to invade Iraq: 50%
(Only 19% say it was "absolutely right" for the US to invade)
Oppose presence of Coalition troops in Iraq: 65%
Iraq needs a government made up mainly of religious leaders: 48%
Iraq needs a government made up mainly of military leaders: 49%
Iraq needs a strong single leader: 91%
Iraq needs an Iraqi democracy: 90%
40% of Iraqis want a dictatorship and/or an Islamic State ((down from 49% in Feb.)
58% of Iraqis want "democracy" (up from 49% in Feb.)
The problem with an item like this is that we don't know what they mean by "democracy." Over 80% of Egyptians said in one poll that democracy is the best form of government, and then 64% of them turned around and said they were satisfied with the Mubarak regime (a soft military dictatorship). So Egyptians didn't mean by "democracy" what Americans would have.
Actually, for most Middle Easterners, "democracy" implies self-determination. By that measure, Iraq is not very democratic at the moment.
The poll seems to define democracy as the principle that leaders are replaced from time to time. If that is all that the 90% want, it doesn't tell us much.
The other problem is that I find it a little difficult to believe that basic ideologies like these have shifted so massively in only a few months, and I suspect we'd be better off averaging the two for 2005 results than in assuming we are seing trends here.
Finally, there are some obvious contradictions. 48% want rule by mulla, but only 13% want an Islamic state. How does that make sense?
In any case, given the February findings, it seems likely to me that a good half of Iraqis still do not want Western-style democracy, which is not very heartening. Moreover, half of Iraqis don't believe that the US should have come there, 60% think it made no difference or actually made things worse, and 2/3s want US troops out.
posted by Juan Cole @ 12/13/2005 12:18:00 AM
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Finally, there are some obvious contradictions. 48% want rule by mulla, but only 13% want an Islamic state. How does that make sense?
It may be that the respondents are hearing "the Iranian system" when the term Islamic state is mentioned.
It is certainly possible to believe that clerics should have a role in guiding government and society without believing in a religious dictatorship.
48% want rule by mulla, but only 13% want an Islamic state.
Could it be something similar to the attitude of some of the American electorate? There's the sense that people who go to church a lot will be more moral and just in public office. It might be more of a vote against corruption than for religion. (A misguided sense in both cases, judging by the evidence.)
Juan, you write, it seems likely to me that a good half of Iraqis still do not want Western-style democracy, which is not very heartening. Why is "not heartening" to you? Why should you want people in another part of the world to have a "western-style" democracy?
All forms of democracy have good and bad things about them-- and the US variant certainly has more bad things than many other variants. Esp[ecially the role of big-bucks in US campaigning.
So instead of going to bat for "Western-style democracy", wouldn't you do better to urge things like a truly accountable government, freedom of conscience and belief, and indeed all the kinds of politically related freedoms enunciated in the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights-- rather than for the expandion of the dominion of "the West"?
On the other hand, the point you make about most people in the Middle East equating "democracy" to some degree with national indpendence is an observation worth making... And indeed, as I've argued many times, the argument underlying it-- namely, that it's impossible to have any system of government accountable to an empowered citizenry in situations of colonialism or foreign military occupation-- is entirely sound, and well worth repeating.
Thanks a million for weighing in here, Helena. Readers will want to look at your incisive weblog, Just World News for more on the situation in Iraq.
I should clarify that it isn't very heartening for the Bush administration project in Iraq that roughly half of Iraqis aren't even interested in a Western-style democracy. I was talking in the terms of the US political debate.
Personally, I think that some form of parliamentary democracy as it has developed over the past century or so (i.e. with the vast expansion of the franchise after the 1867 Reform Act) is desirable. But I think it only works well if it is adopted voluntarily (excluding anomalous situations like postwar Germany and Japan).
Put together, articles by Kanan Makiya /1/ and Mohamad Alrumaihi /2/ are quite remarkable.
/1/ makes the impression of soft neocon rhetoric. Basically, Professor Makiya goes through the text of Iraqi Constitution and comes to the conclusion that not much can be done within framework like this to avoid disintegration of the country.
His solution for this problem is purely legalistic - to change the legislation. The problem is, another term for this process is Abbasization. The analogy with PA "reform" which led to transfer of power from Arafat to Abbas is quite obvious. We also know the sad results. All chances are that in Iraq, it is going to be much worse!
As for /2/, it is written in the language of hard neocons. Heavy usage of terms like "freedom", "oppression", "peace", "fear", etc suggests this quite clearly. In this, Mohamad Alrumaihi is not far from Amir Taheri, another Arab News author who also writes for WashTimes, NR, etc.
1. Helena Cobban. Kanan Makiya: mea culpa and more
Today's NYT had an important article by Kanan Makiya, who was the most significant Iraqi to be an intellectual father of the whole 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Writing nowadays with a dateline of "London", not "Baghdad", Makiya comes the closest he has ever come yet to articulating a "mea culpa" regarding his role instigating the invasion of his homeland.
2. NYT. KANAN MAKIYA. Present at the Disintegration"
3. ANews. Mohamad Alrumaihi. The Proxy War in Iraq
The only face Iraq has had over the past 40 years is Saddam Hussein’s. The role of his aides and ministers was to obey and flatter him. Things have changed a lot now. Iraq’s faces are innumerable: Disagreeing and agreeing, fighting or allying, accusing or justifying.
In the place of a single diktat on any matter in the past, now there are a hundred different views on matters related to politics, economy or culture. It is because Iraq is free. Where demonstrations waving Saddam’s photo and shouting slogans glorifying him alone were allowed, now the Iraqis are free to take out as many demonstrations as they like for any reason they fancy.
Iraq had witnessed a number of revolutions. None of those who came to power after each revolution could be called just. Kings Faisal and Abdallah were murdered. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassim’s fate was no different. Countless politicians were killed by the regime while their relatives were never informed of their death.
The end of Saddam era does not, apparently, mean that the woes of the Iraqis have ended. The law and order system is in shambles.
Murders, abductions and intimidation are widespread. The people have to make a painful choice between the past and the present. A past that meant on the one hand repression, illegal detention and elimination, lack of freedom of expression, press gag, and on the other hand peace. As for the present it means freedom of expression, freedom for organizations and parties while life in the country becomes extremely unsafe.
Long-term repression deprives man of his dignity and humanity that in turn means the loss of his ability to enjoy the basic human urge to express what he wants to say without fear of others. The very cause of his existence is lost with the repression. On the other hand peace in the land is very basic in any society. Life cannot go forward in a lawless state. The Iraqis have to choose either peace without freedom or freedom with lawlessness.
Funny that those who yesterday were complaining about US imposing a puppet regime are engaged in a mea culpa backtrack claiming that US is ONLY imposing a "US-style democracy". But of course a parliamentary system with a symbolic presidency, a la the German chancellory system or the Canadian parliamentary system, is claimed to be "US style democracy" by these very same experts!
Only 13% of Iraqis wish an Islamist state. On the other hand due to political lack of consciousness and cultural shortcomings, the average Iraqi thinks unreasonabley that only the religious sheikhs and imams have the necessary "piety" and "virtue" to lead the country. This explains the discrepency between the two statistics where 48% do not mind mulla rule.
Of course, nobody dares to tell the avarage Islamist that piety and virtue has nothing to do with statesmanship and leadership in an open democracy.
Juan,
Polls are good in marketing products, not in achieving great goals or in winning wars. And it goes without saying that one cannot "market" a war. The latter is the bailiwick of astute, imaginative, resolute professional strategists, not the beat of populist polling. Professional strategists cannot plan a war that aims to prevent a greater catastrophe than 9/11 on the air movements of a weathervane.
Like in all fields of life, before one makes a crucial decision on any matter one consults the experts in the field. For example, in a critical surgery operation one consults the surgeon on whose advise one makes his decision. The operation could totally go wrong, but that is no reason that in future crucial cases surgeons must no longer wield the knife.
The same applies in war. The immense scale of its operation augments at the same time its uncertainty. And in the shadow of this uncertainty, which is the curse on every human action, mistakes are inevitably made in all wars.
The Bush administration committed a number of political and strategic mistakes, e.g. the indiscriminate disbanding of the Iraqi army after the fall of Saddam, and its hesitation to use its overwhelming force relentlessly against the insurgents which had the potential to nip the insurgency in the bud. But despite these errors, the core of its strategy was correct. As its goal was to establish an Archimedean point from which it could turn the world of terrorism and its state sponsors on their heads. That is, by defeating Saddam and the present insurgency, it would defeat by PROXY all other rogue states, as Libya exemplified, as well as the financial backers of terror the Saudis, hence expediting the defeat of global terror.
This is why an imprudent early withdrawal of the American-led coalition before Iraq is stabilized, will be a gross strategic mistake. It will surpass all the other errors of the Americans, as it will transform Iraq into a safe haven for terrorists and it will increase by leaps and bounds the threat to the region and to the countries of the West.
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