Needlenose

CNN articleA new poll has what seems to be good news for anyone frustrated by the apparent lack of public concern over the problems with the U.S. occupation in Iraq:

The number who said things are going well has dipped from 86 percent in early May to 56 percent, and the number that say [they're going] badly has grown from 13 percent to 42 percent.

. . . . The public continues to show support for both the president, with a 61 percent job approval rating in this poll, and the overall Iraq effort.

. . . . The number that expects the United States to find weapons of mass destruction, however, has dropped from 84 percent in late March to 53 percent now.

Almost four in 10 say they believe the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, while six in 10 say they do not believe that.

More than half, 53 percent, say it would matter a great deal to them if they became convinced the Bush administration deliberately misled the public on that subject.

On the surface, this looks like “progress” in communicating the reality of what’s happening in Iraq — you might think that perhaps, with a little effort (and maybe a continuing flow of bad news), the ranks of those questioning the Bushites will continue to grow exponentially.

But take a closer look, and you’ll see that the number of people who say that things are going badly, disapprove of Bush’s performance, and think they were misled about WMD is roughly about 40 percent in each case . . . in all likelihood, these are merely progressives who would be disinclined to back Bush anyway, “coming home to roost” after perhaps feeling obligated to support the president during the pre-guerrilla phase of the war.

The real question is, are more conservative Americans starting to have doubts, too (in other words, is Tacitus the start of a trend)? If not, what will it take to get those who are less naturally disposed to question Dubya’s policies to open their eyes?

A Dean supporter (whom I won’t bother to name) forwarded me this email this morning:

History Will Be Made Today

Dear Friend,

As I sit here writing this, I find myself searching for the right words, the right way to explain what has happened, how it happened, and why today is so important.

History is being made. The last eight days and today will be written about for years, and go down in Presidential campaign history as the nine days that changed the 2004 campaign for President, produced a politics of meaning, and a new kind of campaign powered by people. . . .

What was the author (Dean’s campaign manager) talking about?

His candidate’s second-quarter fundraising totals. Which are great news, granted . . . but is this what a purportedly anti-establishment campaign (especially one dedicated to a “politics of meaning”) supposed to go around touting as “history”?

I guess Dean has become a mainstream candidate in more ways than one!

Quotes from two separate articles in the Los Angeles Times this morning:

“You have to go in and tell them: ‘We’re gonna do what we did in Germany and Japan. We’re gonna write your constitution. We’re gonna install your government. We’re gonna write your laws. We’re gonna watch your every move for a decade, and then maybe you’ll get a chance to do it yourself.’”

– An anonymous “senior military official in Washington”

“The people say to me that the Americans will stay forever. ‘It’s not true,’ I tell them. ‘We don’t want to occupy Iraq. We want to get home to our families.’ But, you know, I don’t think a lot of them believe me.”

–Abdel Jamila, an Arabic-speaking native of Morocco serving in the U.S Army in Iraq

Is it any wonder that the macho talk of a long-term, authoritarian occupation comes from the guy in an air-conditioned office in Washington, D.C.?

It’s getting harder to miss the bad news that keeps coming out of Iraq. And the trends we’ve identified before are continuing to develop. This Los Angeles Times story on Friday’s attacks includes the following details:

The latest attack took place Friday night when a U.S. Army soldier was killed and four others wounded in Sadr City, a neighborhood of the capital . . .

In Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, a U.S. soldier from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in an ambush . . .

In northwestern Baghdad, a soldier was critically wounded in an ambush shortly before Friday afternoon prayers in the predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Kadhimiya, a place that had largely welcomed U.S. troops . . .

The important common element here is that all of these attacks took place in Shiite areas, where once violent resistance in Iraq was limited to the Sunni Muslim-dominated regions.

This may not mean that the Shiite population is in open rebellion — one of the leading Shiite clerics is quoted in the same article as saying, “Violence must be the last solution . . . The beginning must be negotiations and peaceful demonstrations” (which I guess qualifies as good news under the circumstances!).

But it at least suggests that the conscious strategy of the Sunni resistance has shifted so that they are playing Johnny-Appleseed-with-grenades in Shiite areas rather than their home towns so as to avoid being rooted out by American retaliation — and to spread the steadily growing discontent ever wider. As soon as overanxious U.S. troops make a blunder like killing a 12-year-old boy in a Shiite neighborhood, it no longer matters who started the cycle of violence.

Meanwhile, in a typically decisive-but-counterproductive move by Jerry Bremer, the U.S has decided to cancel local elections across Iraq, thereby ensuring that only America and Britain are blamed for ongoing problems. Immediately after Baghdad fell, rumors spread among Iraqis that the collapse happened so quickly, Saddam Hussein must have been in league with the Americans . . . but subsequent events keep making it look like the other way around.

elections canceled
LAT on attacks in Shiite areas
WMD incompetence
NYT’s Gordon on sabotage strategy
Iraqi mood deteriorating

Hey, it’s news quiz time! Here’s a quote from a news story:

Asked where he got his information, he said: “From authentic sources. Many authentic sources.”

. . . . “The time is not ripe yet to say what happened. When’s history is ready, then we can talk about it,” he said.

Now the quiz — who was speaking, and what was he talking about? Was it . . .

(A) Former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on his fantastic claims during the fall of Baghdad, or

(B) A Bush administration official talking about the ongoing search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Good luck!!