The Daily Background

Just thought I’d give a quick heads up… I’m happy to share that I just had a column published over at IraqSlogger, one of the best Iraq-dedicated news websites, which is run by reporters and former military experts. The column is about how Iraqis and Amerians surprisingly agree on more than most might think, according to polls. Here’s a teaser:

Steven Kull, an expert on polling who serves as director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes and runs the website WorldPublicOpinion.org, remarked on common ground between Americans and Iraqis during a speech he gave at conference about US-Islamic relations in Qatar earlier this year. “We have found some interesting areas of common ground,” Kull said. “For example, 60 percent of Americans and 78 percent of Iraqis agree that the US military presence in Iraq is ‘provoking more conflict than it is preventing.’”

“Interestingly, Iraqis and Americans are not even very far apart on the question of what the US should do now,” Kull continued. “Both Iraqis and Americans want the US to commit to withdraw within a limited time period, rather than having an open-ended commitment.”

Polls show that wide majorities of both Iraqis and Americans are wary of Iran’s influence on Iraq and that almost nobody supports Osama bin Laden. What’s more, American and Iraqi feelings towards the conflict seem to have been evolving together over time. For instance, after Iraq’s elections in December 2005, polls in both countries showed both peoples were more optimistic than they had ever been for Iraq’s future. Since then however, pessimism has been growing among both those in the US and Iraq: the number of Iraqis who feel their country is moving in the “right direction” has sunk 20 points, and American optimism for the future of Iraq has seen a comparable decrease.

You can read the full column here.

Filed under: Iraq Related, Z-TDB Blog