Decision ‘08

Opinion Shifting On Iraq?

The latest Gallup poll shows a 9-point shift towards the view that the surge is making things better in Iraq. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this is still a minority opinion by a good margin:

USA TODAY’s Susan Page reports that President Bush is making some headway in arguing that the increase in U.S. troops in Iraq is showing military progress.

In the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Friday through Sunday, the proportion of those who said the additional troops are “making the situation better” rose to 31% from 22% a month ago. Those who said it was “not making much difference” dropped to 41% from 51%.

About the same number said it was making things worse: 24% now, 25% a month ago.

The poll also shows Giuliani and Clinton with double-digit leads over their rivals.

Michael Barone points to a recent widely-discussed Op-Ed in the New York Times as part of what may be a shift towards the administration viewpoint:

It’s not often that an opinion article shakes up Washington and changes the way a major issue is viewed. But that happened last week, when The New York Times printed an opinion article by Brookings Institution analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack on the progress of the surge strategy in Iraq.

Yes, progress. O’Hanlon and Pollack supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — Pollack even wrote a book urging the overthrow of Saddam Hussein — but they have sharply criticized military operations there in the ensuing years.

“As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq,” they wrote, “we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory,’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”

Their bottom line: “There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.”

There has been some suggestion by those on the left that O’Hanlon, for one, is already backtracking…but this is clearly spin, as the ‘backtracking’ quote clearly makes a distinction between military success and Iraqi political failure:

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. O’Hanlon said the article was intended to point out that the security situation was currently far better than it was in 2006. What the American military cannot solve, he said, are problems caused by the inability of Iraqis to forge political solutions. “Ultimately, politics trumps all else,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don’t see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing.”

I guess the 12 people who didn’t already realize that the Iraqi government isn’t holding up its end of the bargain know it now…but that wasn’t the point. The point is, the surge is having a salutary effect, by most accounts. Let’s not put on the rose-colored glasses just yet, however; the problems are deep-rooted, perhaps intractable, and the war remains vastly unpopular both at home and abroad.

Still, it’s something…

4 Responses to “Opinion Shifting On Iraq?”

1 David M. Smith Says:
August 7th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Hi Mark,

The Gallop poll is absolute proof that 9% of Americans are paying attention! : - )

I would say that is fairly positive.
2 mikebdot Says:
August 8th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Was it the op-ed itself or the fawning media coverage of the op-ed? Hmmm. I wonder…
3 kotzabasis Says:
August 10th, 2007 at 6:13 am
General Petraeus, like a “stronger” Atlas, is pushing the rise of the sun of victory in the up till now dark sky of Iraq. As I foreshadowed in an article of mine last January, 2007 might be the ANNUS MIRABILIS for President Bush. But the sad fact is that the Iraqi politicians are not putting their shoulder on the “rise of the sun”.
4 kotzabasis Says:
August 10th, 2007 at 6:30 am
General Petraeus, like a “stronger” Atlas, is pushing the rise of the sun of victory in the up till now dark sky of Iraq. As I foreshadowed in a paper of mine last January, 2007 might be the ANNUS MIRABILIS for President Bush. But the sad fact is that the Iraqi politicians are not putting their shoulder on the “rise of the sun”.