Survey shows majority of Iraqis disapprove of invasion

Looking at Norm’s actual post one can see that, as with most of the pro-invasion left who claim to stand up for ‘science’ rather than ‘superstition’ and the ‘Enlightenment Project’ over ‘irrationalism’, he has little or no understanding of what social science actually is or how it works.

Point one: as someone else pointed out on this blog (sorry can’t remember who) all this information about optimism etc. is meaningless unless one knows what the tendency for this variable was before the invasion . Now I have heard (don’t know for sure: sources welcome) that in fact optimism has been rising in similar opinion polls in Iraq since the early ’90s . If true, then of course the current rise in optimism in Iraq could not possibly be the result of the invasion.

As for the rest of his post: the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.

However, aside from Norm’s desperate attempts to persuade himself that he is friends from the Iraqi people (a people we should never forget, whose language he does not speak, whose culture he does not understand, and whose country he has never visited and has no intention of visiting) someone else from the pro-invasion left said something interesting recently.

In his most recent article for the New Statesman, in which Cohen stressed yet again his love for the foreign policy of George Bush, he let slip in the final paragraph: ‘Although we (i.e. the pro-invasion left) are in a minority, we believe we will win in the end….’

Why thank you Nick!

For years, we will remember, the party line was that the pro-invasion left were the ‘majority’ of (Iraqi AND British) public opinion, and that it was the ‘metropolitan elite’ who were unrepresentative.

Now, however, with opinion poll data, showing in poll after poll after poll just how unpopular this war is with British people, and Iraqi people and Americans (not to mention South Americans and Chinese and Indians and….) at least the pro-invasion left are now prepared to concede that THEY are the tiny middle class (aspiring) elite attempting to impose THEIR solutions to complex problems on the rest of us, and that they do NOT represent the ‘silent majority’ but instead the vocal (and in Hitchens and Cohen’s case) well paid minority.

Although like Lenin and other elitists and believers in the right of (unelected…i don’t recall the elections that voted Cohen and Hitchens into power) minorities to dictate policy to the rest of us, they believe that they will ‘win in the end’, at least they now accept the hostility of ordinary British (and American and Iraqi) people to their ‘project’.

Which is nice.

btw, to expand on the above, I do think it’s terribly ironic that a survey of the Iraqi hoi polloi can get it straight in their heads that there’s a difference between believing “the Iraq invasion ended up having some favourable consequences and things are getting better in Iraq” and “the Iraq invasion was on balance justified” but a Professor of Political Philosophy seemingly can’t. Talk about the Wisdom of Crowds.

It’s hard to see how judgements of culpability can track verdicts about objective wrongness, in the eyes of the Iraqis, unless they credit the coalition with dramatically more effective powers of foresight than they attribute to themselves. That is, if an Iraqi was convinced at the time of the invasion that it was right, but is now convinced that it is wrong, he cannot blame the coalition, for doing what he now thinks is wrong, unless he thinks that they were in a position to know (or reasonably believe) *then* what he has only (by his own lights) realised *now*. This kind of asymmetry in the predictive powers of the coalition and the Iraqis is quite possible, because the coalition’s stated predictions were partly a matter of their assessment of their own capabilities, which they were naturally in a better position to make, and partly a matter of their own intentions, about which they were theoretically infallible. The polls in 2003 indicating majority support among Iraqis for the war may therefore not have had the sort of justifying force many on the pro-war side found in them – which is not to say that those on the other side were justified in simply ignoring them, as they nearly all did. The epistemic situation of many pro-war commentators was rather closer to that of the Iraqis than to that of the coalition. Two months ago, in a post entitled “Narcissism and the pro-war left,” you said “Good intentions should count for nothing here. You [sc pro-war types] backed a disastrous project, mismanaged by morons, sold by lies, and it has turned into a bloody mess.” But it seems that a majority of Iraqis would be subject to the same accusation; and it was precisely their stated views that seemed so decisive to many on the pro-war side. Evaluation of the various pundits’ predictive and reflective performances is hardly the most important issue right now, but if we’re going to go in for it we should resist any suggestion that it is simply a matter of waiting and seeing what happens and then awarding points accordingly. It may have been reasonable to believe very different things at different times.

Oh Dear Chris

I can just imagine your pouty sulk as you read the BBC report and Normans piece. You then sat down to write your pithy reply

yeah but no but yeah but no but….etc.

“they believe that they will ‘win in the end’, at least they now accept the hostility of ordinary British (and American and Iraqi) people to their ‘project’. Which is nice.”

That is but another regretable example of what I believe is officially termed “false consciousness”.

Iraq Analysis Group tries to maintain a comprehensive list of significant polls of Iraqi opinion available in English which you may find interesting.

The thing I find quite extraordinary about Normblog is that if you aren’t concentrating, half the items appear to be “Look at this story in the Guardian! Why doesn’t the Guardian cover stories like this? An excellent article from the Guardian; not that you’ll ever see anything like this in the Guardian! Disgusting piece here in the Guardian – the author ought to be forced to read this excellent account from the Guardian”.

Certainly the question of whether the war was in some sense justified, whether those involved had the right to make the decisions they did, is going to be one for the historians and philosophers.

I think the most relevant message for most of those reading this site is that a belief in the essential accuracy of this poll is incompatible with a belief that current US strategy is incapable of achieving it’s stated goals.

In short: either the poll is a lie, or the war is not unwinnable.

Providing, at least, the US sticks to the primary goal of enabling the creation of a democracy it can trade with, and does not overcommit on secondary matters such as basing rights, oil and arms contracts, etc.

soru

I wonder if optimism isn’t region wide right now. As David Ignatius recently pointed out, the boom spurred by the rise of the price of oil is hitting the Gulf region like it did in the seventies, except that this time, the money is not flowing back towards America and Europe, in the form of investment. Iraqis must know that — if they can get the Americans out and negotiate some end to the civil war themselves — they have every prospect of good times.

One thing about the poll that should make anybody suspicious about the respondents is contained in the numbers about who you trust to be a leader. Allawi is quite high — much higher than his numbers in the last election — and Sadr is quite low. This, to me, indicates that the poll skews away from the poor and disaffected — Sadr’s constituency — and towards the middle class and the Sunni — Allawi’s constituency. I would imagine that it is much harder to poll in Sadr city than it is in a middle class Baghdad neighborhood. Those numbers are definitely a red light.

I speak of course of Vladimir Putin in Chechnya.

Is it generally accepted as a principle of argument that you can change the countries, individuals, policies, populations and facts involved and expect everything to be the same?

soru

My argument should have been self-evident: is there any coherent argument that could be applied to Bush’s war to show that he ‘must’ have been sincere about bringing democracy to Iraq that could also not have been applied to Putin in Chechnya? If so, why aren’t the pro-invasion left praising Putin as well as Bush?

The fact is that the common sense and sensible cynicism that people develop as they grow older is switched off by the pro-invasion left when they look, starry eyed, at Bush and Blair. When they look at other people who perform almost exactly the same acts in different contexts they see clearly what is going on. No one argues that Putin is a genuine democrat, or that his intentions towards Chechnya are good, because most people live in the real world.

Ipso fact, few people believe Bush and Blair’s rhetoric about democracy in Iraq, or that it is in their interests to bring democracy to Iraq (it clearly isn’t) because they have a grain of common sense and believe the evidence of their eyes and ears, not what overpaid columnists for fashion magazines tell lthem to believe.

Likewise if it had been the United States (and Britain) that had invaded Chechnya, we WOULD now have to listen to Geras and the rest drone on about how anyone who opposes Putin was ‘on the other side’ and Hitchens pompously declaiming that anyone who questions the validity of the recent elections is ‘on the other side’.

The pro-war left will only ever support ‘interventions’ carried out by the United States (with Britain sometimes in tow).

I’d decided to self-impose a moratorium on commenting on the ramblings of the “pro-war left”, but I’m roused…

Kindly let us know when your “moratorium” is reinstated. And what others may currently be in effect.

oops, sorry, I meant Ahmad Jalabi, not Jafari.

Remember when the Lancet Report was published it was being heavily attacked and its methods scrutinised?

That’s because there is no extrapolation from rare events. This survey wouldn’t have been useful for that. It is useful where there are 4 responses (and an NA) that all respondents answer.

That’s because there is no extrapolation from rare events.

Of course there is: they’re saying ‘80% of the Iraqis are optimistic’, not ‘957 of the Iraqis are optimistic’.

So, Roger, are you saying the survey is phony, that they probably avoided going to tough neighborhoods; is that what you’re saying?

Roger may have his own view, but my understanding is that the security problems were tough but not unsurmountable; they did get enough geographical coverage to create a sample that a reputable research organisation considers to be adequate.

I think Roger might have been making the point though that respondents might have been a little bit reluctant to express support for Sadr to a man with a clipboard. We know that support for the Tory Party in Lytham St Annes is understated for this reason, so it’s hardly a gross slur on the integrity of ORI to surmise that support for a known militia leader in a country under occupation may also be subject to nonrandom error.

Ah, Stephen, rare events, I see what you mean. Sorry.

Mr. Bertam conlcudes his post with this:

Today 50.3 per cent of Iraqis polled answered that the invasion was somewhat or absolutely wrong.

while his headline declares:

Survey shows majority of Iraqis disapprove of invasion

Is it not the case that, given margins for error, this poll in fact reflects an evenly divided population of Iraqis on the question of whether the invasion was right?

By the way, another indicator of skewing in the poll is pretty blatant. The poll numbers speak strongly against the sort of federalism that was just mandated, in the constitution, by 70 percent of the population. Either the vote was crooked, or the poll is skewed. I don’t think pro-war people want the idea that the vote was crooked spread around. But who knows — those zombie pop contradictions like 60s housewives popped valium.

‘Umm…you are capable of reading yeah? And you have read the results of the latest opinion polls from Iraq, yeah?’

I can and I read on pg 22.

leave now 25.5%
remain until security restored 30.9%
remain until govt. elected in December 19.4%
remain until Iraqi security forces can operate independently 15.6%
remain longer but leave eventually 3.2%
never leave 1.3%
difficult to say 4.1%

So yes I can read– and quote too neither selectively or mendaciously.

About that question: the fact is that the December elections are nearly upon us, and so when these elections are held and the government is in power then option 1 and 3 will, as it were, become amalgamated. In other words, 44.9% of the respondents want the troops out (essentially) sometime very soon after December 16th.

The other aspect that can hardly be stressed too much is that there will be a huge amount of ‘skew’ in this result. In Sunni regions it is safe to say that the ‘coalition must leave now’ option would be much higher. I would imagine that it would also be extremely high in most Shia regions.

Some more questions that the BBC somehow failed to highlight:

Since the war, how do you feel about the way in which the United States and other Coalition Forces have carried out their responsibilities in Iraq?
Base = All respondents who heard of the Coalition Forces (Q19)
Have they done
A very good job 164 19.4%
Quite a good job 454 26.6
Quite a bad job 322 18.8
A very bad job 679 39.8
I do not know enough about it 47 2.7
I prefer not to answer this question 41 2.4
Total 1707 100.0

Q32 – Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq?

Strongly support 218 12.8%
Somewhat support 330 19.4%
Somewhat oppose 355 20.8%
Strongly oppose 746 43.7%
Difficult to say 58 3.4%
Total 1707 100.0

Despite what you say, the Iraqis show, by a clear majority, that they did not approve of the war, and they despise the occupiers.

Mona: “… If the violence ends any time soon, those numbers will rise.”

And if I win the lotto, I’ll be rich.

Despite what you say, the Iraqis show, by a clear majority, that they did not approve of the war, and they despise the occupiers.

In Brendan’s world, 0.3% is a clear majority, and ‘Somewhat oppose’ is despise.

Meanwhile in the real world, things are more nuanced:
today’s Guardian
Even some Sunni politicians fear a quick withdrawal, however much their community desires it, because they fear being left vulnerable – not just about Sunni-dominated insurgents but to the Shiite-led government security services and militias such as the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army that have been accused of abusing Sunnis.
“After the elections, we will press for the withdrawal of the occupation forces, but this should be done through a good plan that does not pave the way for a chaotic situation and a security vacuum,” Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leading Sunni politician, told The Associated Press.

soru

I am actually suprised by the number of people who openly admit to supporting coalition forces and or think they have done a good job. Slightly less than 50% and about 35%.

(Doesn’t mean everything will turn out ok or that the war was right.)

25% say leave now and 54% say they oppose the occupation forces.

Sounds like a scapple face bit.

Question – What does the Iraqi resistance do after blowing up an oil pipeline?

Answer – Claim responsibility and lodge a complaint about the US forces inablity to maintain law and order.

These Iraqis seem very people like, only more so.

the Iraqi hoi polloi can get it straight that there’s a difference between believing “the Iraq invasion ended up having some favourable consequences” […] and “the Iraq invasion was on balance justified” but a Professor of Political Philosophy seemingly can’t

Yeah, though I’d say, “seemingly”. IMO, a smart guy (Norm) who can’t make such distinctions is just plain dishonest.

Which is annoying, because political questions are complicated enough without having to wade through all the propaganda.

Without the raw data, as brendan has shown, you could produce a similarly pessimistic narrative from the BBC poll, without at any point actually lying (at least by journalistic standards).

Fair enough, although the article seems to imply that the guy in charge of security for the Basra region (Lt Col Nick Henderson) resigned because of this poll. How ‘spun’ could it be?

“I’m roused by a post on Normblog entitled At variance with certain depictions in which Geras claims”

I take it no one cares that this link is broken (rather obviously so, beyond not working: there’s an “in” at the end).

Presumably everyone bothered to read what Geras said, before commenting above, but didn’t find worth mentioning the fact that they couldn’t use the broken link to get to the post.

The hard part isn’t reconciling a majority-generally-satisfied-and-optimistic poll result with a (bare) majority thinking the American military intervention was wrong. There are a number of easy ways to explain that juxtaposition. The tricky part is explaining a substantial increase in both the number of people satisfied with circumstances and optimistic about the future, and the number convinced that the American intervention was wrong. Why would an improvement in conditions and outlook make the intervention look worse in retrospect?

My best guess is that poll responders tend to treat the question, “was the accession to power of X right or wrong?”, as a generic job approval/support rating for X. (For example, I would expect the question, “was electing the current US president a good or a bad thing?” to elicit responses in US polls that track exceedingly well the sitting president’s current job approval ratings.) Viewed in this light, the trend in Iraqi poll results makes perfect sense: as conditions improve and the outlook brightens, support for continued American involvement in the governing of Iraq can be expected to decline.

However, if my interpretation is correct, then this recent poll result does not imply that the American intervention in Iraq actually was a bad thing, any more than the low approval ratings that even the most popular, successful US presidents garner in their later, lame-duck years mean that those presidents should never have been elected in the first place.

‘In other words, over 64% of Iraqis oppose or strongly oppose the presence of UK/US troops’,
Brendan:
Again you misleadingly select parts of the survey. This is followed by:

leave now 25.5%
remain until security restored 30.9%
remain until govt. elected in December 19.4%
remain until Iraqi security forces can operate independently 15.6%
remain longer but leave eventually 3.2%
never leave 1.3%
difficult to say 4.1%

‘But make no mistake: they hate us’

No clearly you hate the occupation and wish to project your views onto the Iraqis. Clearly a lot think coalition troops have done ‘a very bad job’ but most do not ‘hate’ them enough to want them to leave immediately.

How irritating it is when those ungrateful Iraqis let us all down with their uncomfortable opinions. Never mind in a few days Im sure you will have deliberately forgotten this survey.

Haha. 99% of those polled think that women should be able to vote, whereas 15% of them believe that women shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car. I know a lot of people here in the US that would agree with such an idea, though.

Isn’t it funny how people who don’t speak Arabic, have never visited Iraq, nor would, and don’t actually know any Iraqis are pretty excited by the idea of what Iraqis actually think? Incidentally, you are right, the Iraqis are ‘ungrateful’. Do you think they should be grateful? How grateful? On their knees grateful, or serving you grapes as you lounge about on your sedan drinking wine grateful? Natives aren’t grateful for the wonderful things we give them are they? They need a good whipping, all of them.

To repeat my point: for better or for worse, my argument is that that there is no intention for a Coalition withdrawal at any point. Bush (in a thing I posted earlier) (apparently) told aides to say this, and said the model for Iraq should be South Korea etc. where the Americans NEVER left. Bush and Blair have been careful in their phrasing. They state: ‘no withdrawal till the jobs done’, but never actually state that there will be a withdrawal after that (in the dictionary definition of withdrawal meaning…er…withdrawal. Soru objects to this definition and with reason).

So another way of putting the poll result afterwards is that 1.3% of Iraqis agree with Bush that the Coalition should, essentially, never leave.

In any case, as I stated again (tiresomely I know, but we members of the reality based community do have this tedious predilection for quoting facts) the ‘skew’ of these results is very high, and should give us all pause. The results of these polls are highly skewed by the presence of the Kurds….(note: these are the ‘good’ Kurds of Iraq I am talking about, not the ‘bad’ Kurds of Turkey). Sunnis and Shias combined would of course have much higher percentages in favour of withdrawal, undeniably sizeable majorities. Moreover, as the poll indicated the numbers of Iraqis demanding immediate withdrawal will undeniably leap after December 16th. As for Soru’s point that this occupation hasn’t been as unpopular as his own imaginings as to how unpopular other occupations have been: I will pass over that in silence.

‘No clearly you hate the occupation and wish to project your views onto the Iraqis. ‘

If by ‘you’ you mean the British people then, as opinion poll data shows, you are quite right. We do hate the occupation. But the great thing about democracy is that even people in tiny unrepresentative minorities like yourself get a voice. Isn’t it great?

Who to bomb?

Posted by Bob B

Whom to bomb, bob.

Whom to bomb.

Judging by the marksmanship of the present administration, if we lose the northern lights to Siberia then Azerbaijan’s gonna get it.
.

General comment: for some reason, lots of people who regard themselves as either “pro” or “anti” war seem to feel that they’re making an interesting rhetorical point by waxing sarcastic about all the conditionss that people on the other side meet, or fail to meet, which, strangely, also happen to be conditions that most people on the other other side meet, or fail to meet, often including the speaker.

I.E. person X is said to hold Disapproved Opinion A even though they have “never been to Iraq,” or “don’t speak Arabic,” or “aren’t putting their own life at risk to back up their opinion,” or quite a few other conditions which, I’m quite willing to bet, more than a few of those who seem to quite clearly feel that these are disqualifying conditions, they themselves do not meet.

It seems a peculiar mindset to me, but perhaps it’s just me.

The main thing that always strikes me in these discussions, as in most political discussions, is how long a little lessening of moral righteousness on one’s own part might go towards contributing to an actual exchange of views, and some actual gain in knowledge or perspective. Of course, I’m scarcely innocent of lack of moral righteousness hither and yon, myself. But that does only tend to re-emphasize to me the view that turning it down might be a useful, if difficult, exercise for perhaps all of us.

A person has to have dreams, you know.

‘They might say they want US forces to leave after Dec 16. But you really have to ask them again after Dec 16.’

Fair enough. I can wait. It’s only 4 days.

[aeiou] Oi, did you cut my last comment because you couldn’t answer it? Eton, I bet. Must be Eton.

What’s the Arabic for “oh, mustn’t grumble”?

I’ve seen karl marx’s argument before and it mystifies me. As far as I know, no self-described socialist party in Iraq has the support of more than a tiny percentage of the Iraqi population (unless you count ex-Baathists). The Iraqi Communist Party did very poorly in the January election and, as far as I know, it was the only nominally socialist group to field candidates.

Yet km and others seem to think that support from such a party is a necessary condition for a policy on war with Iraq to be advocated by socialists. Do they actually believe this ? If the sole socialist party in country X calls for an invasion to overthrow that country’s government, would they automatically support such a call?

And, since the Iraqi Communist Party initially opposed the invasion (according to Wikipedia) which party were they relying on when they supported it?

Trying to define public opinion is like bottling a cloud or herding cats. A fair view would be that Iraq public opinion is a long way from how it was visualised by msot supporters of the war (at least in public) but it is a very very long way from how it was visualised by most opponents of the war. Maybe Iraqis are over nationalism.

In case anyone doubts what I said above, here’s another opinion poll (which must be considered to have more validity than the Iraqi one, given that it was not carried out in a country in the middle of a civil war) in which Americans this time, 58% of them, state that they want Bush to set a timetable for withdrawal. And we already know that most British people think the same (after December 16th).

Watch the liberal imperialists argue that the methodology was flawed/the sample size was too small/it’s not what the Americans think it’s what the Iraqis think etc. etc. etc. And then ask yourself: would they be raising these points if the poll stated that a majority of Americans did NOT want Bush to set a date for withdrawal?

Brendan, I find the concept of a national government (US, UK, Syria or any other national government) sending troops and money abroad for the purpose of creating democracy there – I find this concept absurd. So, whatever arguments the pro-war-left people present – these are arguments defending an absurd position, much like the arguments defending the flat earth theory.

‘But in the world as it is, it is the other sides of those arguments who feel the need to resort to lies and distortions, the facts not being in their favour.’

Oh please share with us. What lies have been told by those who are on the side of the majority of the British people and the majority of the American people in wanting a timetable for withdrawal?

(Incidentally, let’s not forget how Harry’s Place reported large demonstrations against the presence of Syrian bases on Lebanese soil:

‘Beirut was the location for a huge demonstration Monday against the de facto Syrian occupation of Lebanon. It follows last week’s massive and angry funeral procession for Rafik Hariri, whose murder is widely blamed on the Syrians.

Perhaps not coincidentally Syria hinted it might start withdrawing some of its 14,000 troops from its neighboring country. Believe it when it happens.‘.

It should be stressed that my position vis a vis the Americans/British in Iraq is exactly the same as Harry’s Place vis a vis the Syrians and the Lebanese: i.e. I will believe that troops have withdrawn when they actually go.

My posiition vis a vis Iraq is also the same as Chirac’s and Bush’s when they called for:

‘US President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac have this week repeatedly demanded a full Syrian army withdrawal from Lebanon.’ (emphasis added). How happy do you think Chirac and Bush would have been if Syria had left behind military bases, perhaps large military bases, whose relationship to the Lebanese military (in terms of command) was, to put it mildly, problematic?

And were the pro-war left swayed by the fact that sizeable amounts of Lebanese (perhaps a majority, who knows?) wanted the Syrians to stay? Of course not. There was no poring over opinion poll data there. There was no particular interest in what the Lebanese people ‘wanted’. The US wanted Syria out and that was the end of it.)

The fact is that the actions of France and Russia and Syria are viewed with the normal common sense scepticism that any sane person would. In other words, it is not always assumed that their actions are philanthropic, nuances are accepted, linguistic and ethnic splits in countries are accepted and so forth.

It is only for the US and the UK that we all have to suddenly assume that if Bush says something…well that makes it true. And if he says he is bringing democracy to Iraq…then that’s just the way it is.

This is made clear by Gene’s own latest missive:

‘Of course you can choose to believe everything Bush says about democracy and freedom is a lie intended to conceal his neo-imperialist designs. Or you can choose (as I do) to take him at his word….’

Again it can hardly be stated enough that it is literally inconceivable that if Chirac or Putin or Berlusconi or Assad were to state that they were genuine about spreading democracy they would be automatically disbelieved until they could provide some evidence to back this up. It’s only Bush and Blair who have a get out of jail free card.

‘Time changes things. It is entirely consistent to approve of one set of circumstances if they endure only 2 years, vs. pretty much the same set if they endure ten times longer.’

Don’t get me wrong. I was fully in favour of a Syrian withdrawal. I am also fully in favour of a full Russian withdrawal in Chechnya. I am also fully in favour of an American/UK withdrawal from Iraq.

My reasons for all three are the same, because the three situations are essentially the same.

Incidentally in my post above ‘automatically disbelieved’ should of course be ‘automatically believed.’, and ignore the rest of that sentence. Mea culpa.

I was far too young to have an opinion at the time :). I don’t know too much about it, but a quick websearch shows that Syria first got involved in Lebanon in ’76 when i was 5.

Cohen’s certainly tried that “Who are your comrades in Iraq, you pro-fascists?” above his own name. IIRC I replied, “The WCPI”. No response from him. On the other hand, I can’t for the life of me find it on google, so it may be false memory.

And sure enough, once I admit I can’t find it, the first thing that I do is just that. Here we go:
https://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/26/reading-the-small-print/
I still miss Nick, though – at one stage he was on our side, unlike that Hitchens, who was only ever on his own.

Actually, a test is coming up of the accuracy of the Oxford Research Poll. Given that Allawi is the most liked leader in the poll, let’s see how he does. In my opinion, the poll’s results show a distinct class bias — an avoidance of, for instance, the vast mass of the unemployed and the poor. However, this is only an inference — the poll’s takers, maddeningly, feel that they have done their statistical duty merely by assuring us that they have taken samples from each region.

Myself, I have a hard time believing Allawi has suddenly emerged as Iraq’s most popular guy. However, opinions shift quickly. The Sunnis may have forgiven him for Fallujah, and the Shiites might look back on Fallujah admiringly, as a sample of the kind of massive punishment that should be doled out to the Sunnis. Stranger contradictions have elected stranger politicians.

But I’d bet against it, and the poll, at this point.

Oi, Karl! Are you Nick Cohen?