[...] called this AP story fishy from the beginning: Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious [...]

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and yet the polls in your Brookings Inst. Index cites 70-80% of Iraq wish for us to leave

They want us to leave eventually, Doug, but not at this time. Only when they are strong enough to ensure their safety. The Iraqis know we don’t want to stay forever at least with the force we have there now. But it will be a while before we can leave entirely. Unless Obama or Clinton win the WH. Then everything goes down the toilet. And I do mean everything.

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Iraq could become the Switzerland of the Middle East and the libs would still lament the evil Bush and “the cold blooded killers”. For the libs to admit that Bush has been successful at anything, especially such a hated undertaking as the Iraq war, on the failure of which they staked their reputation, would be like for the Ayatollahs to publicly convert to Christianity.

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I just can’t keep up with the anti-free-Iraq types’ beefs, Mike’s A. Last year Maliki was a disastrous mistake… a puppet of Iran and someone “we” should have gotten rid of. Ain’t that a laugh.. that we tell them who to appoint as PM. Do that and we’d really deserve the “puppet” comments.

This year we hear he’s a puppet of the US and Bush WH.

Oh what a difference a day, and some progress, makes….

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Doug: I feel your pain.

What a shame Iraq isn’t the disaster you want it to be.

Keep trying though. I’m sure you’ll convince the Obamatons!

How sad!

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Maliki is not the Prez, Doug. Talabani is a Kurd. One VP is Shia, the other Sunni.

And if Maliki got all his nods from the WH, what the heck was he doing in Basra? Evidently a very independent puppet, despite what strings you believe are attached. If the Iraq Assembly mandated a withdrawal, the four power positions would be required to do as voted. That “majority” you say voted against the surge must have fallen short of the minimum needed to require action, or it was veto’d by the Pres Council.

And I don’t give a whit about the UNSC and their mandates. They’re a worthless bunch of elitist bureaucrats that thrive on corruption, and have nary a successful endeavor to their name. You think they can stablize Iraq? OMG…. They were the first to bug out in 2003. Talk about a fair weather friend.

PS: US Congress and US policy are not dictated by opinion polls (i.e. “the will of the people”) but by our elected officials’ decisions. Why should your version of Iraq be any different?

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And yet everyone who follows this stuff knows Maliki get his nods from the White House, and that Bush and he have done all they can to ignore congress and the Iraqi parliament on troop presence renewal:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/mnfindex.htm

You obviously didn’t read my whole piece.

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…and yet the polls in your Brookings Inst. Index cites 70-80% of Iraq wish for us to leave.

So, which is more accurate, your ‘interviews’ or your polls?

Accuracy of either means nothing, Doug. Whether an interview or a poll, they are not government policy.

The US stays because the Iraqi President asked us to (for an add’l two years) late last year. You do not abandon a fledgling Arab democracy when their leadership requests help. What kind of an ally would we be?

I guarantee – if the Iraq President, two Veeps and PM asked us to leave – we’ve be doing an orderly withdrawal starting immediately.

The liberal talking points of we can’t leave when the violence is high, and now we stay when the violence is down is absurd. We are waiting for the formal green light from the government. Since they haven’t asked, evidently they aren’t too upset at our presence.

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…and yet the polls in your Brookings Inst. Index cites 70-80% of Iraq wish for us to leave.

So, which is more accurate, your ‘interviews’ or your polls?

Furthermore, that’s what it comes down to doesn’t it; the will of the Iraqi people and the sovereignty of the country; not Maliki, not Bush, not the CPA, not generals, not Iran; it is a peoples’ choice, the thematic cornerstone of democracy —that the will and sovereignty of ‘the people’ be respected and unfettered.

Yet we Americans “are wiser”

That’s generally the end of the story isn’t it; you gentlemen fetter the will of the Iraqi people. Of course, you rationalize the polls away as inaccurate or blimps of no consequence, but there they are, one after another, in one fashion or another: 70-80%, not trusting us, wanting us to leave, believing we create more violence than Iran or militias, willing to attack us…. You ignore all this vastly negative public sentiment smothering it in we are “wiser” than they are.

Some of you, however, may be actually concerned, and then retort: ‘We got to stay; they don’t know what they are talking about; they will kill each other in no time once we leave.’

Yet that is in your eyes, your ‘American’ voice, your ‘American’ perspective, not an Iraqi’s. Iraqi polls indicate the US military presence provokes a majority of the violence, they are the catalysts to anger. Yet I have never seen a counter-argument -EVER- to this polling data point.

Yet we Americans are “wiser.”

Yet the morally undeterred refusing to acquiesce to a possible future genocide remain steadfast. If Iraq never had a ‘civil war,’ fine, then, I say; you then should also have less of a moral concern for one happening now, as most ethnicities are all segregated and have been relocated and most of Iraq has made so much progress in 5 plus years. So, if you let them go about their business and you support their general will by removing the US troops, you may even prevent a possible genocide! With the Iraqis, the UN, and international support, their numerous other ways to promote stability, outside of the Administration’s military driven solutions a possible genocide can be removed from reality.

Yet, we Americans are “wiser”.

Americans are generally now the only nation in Iraq. Most have left; many other nations now refuse to assist us. The world community is opposed to our presence. Yet, we Americans have our supreme eyes and ears and voices on how to run ‘house’—despite almost everyone now;
yet we persist, we know their house better than the residents in their own home.

You say, ‘al Qaeda’s been defeated; Sunni’s hate them now.’ ‘Good,’ I say,’ they know their enemy; they can own their security.’

Finally, it’s not just polls and people of Iraq that wish our troops off their soil. One year ago a majority of the Iraqi Parliament voted against an increase in the US troop presence in Iraq. When polls say the people of Iraq want us out of Iraq, it’s more than simple majority, it’s a vast majority evidenced by being carried over into the highest chambers of representative government.

Yet, we Americans are “wiser”.

Add now religious leaders, even Sistani, not only opposes our presence but permitting aggression against us. This was the backlash that many thoughtful onlookers feared, that Maliki might face with his ill-prepared, clumsy sieges. As a consequence, without a thought, now Maliki has postponed the Oct. regional elections (the day after committing to Pelosi their continuance– a slap in her face, for sure). (Which as a matter of course, if the postponement is maintained, will in the least provoke political fractioning, and in the most violence.)

To some Republicans it’s not enough to simply support a country’s independence and sovereignty, they additionally require ‘American’ mandates that conform to their own domestic designs. In the end, by consequence, everyone suffers and the story, over time, becomes clear to all with the modern invention of polling: poll after poll 2/3s of Americans want out of Iraq, 3/4 of Iraqis want Americans out of Iraq.

(On a more humorous note, at least for me, I found it Ironic that on the same day that Sistani was pulled out of the woods, a McCain supporter, Hagee was pushed back into the woods.)

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“he thinks the country has had enough.”

And yet how many interviews have I read with Iraqis whose first concern is that the U.S. stay. They know that if we leave before they are ready that the evil will return.

Apparently, they are wiser than most Democrats.

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