Iraqis More Positive Than Americans
In Iraq, the majority of citizens are feeling pretty good about their lives and their future:
Fifty-five percent of Iraqis say things in their own lives are going well, well up from 39 percent as recently as August. More, 62 percent, rate local security positively, up 19 points. And the number who expect conditions nationally to improve in the year ahead has doubled, to 46 percent in this new national poll by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and the Japanese broadcaster NHK.
Without directly crediting the surge in U.S. forces, fewer report security as the main problem in their own lives – 25 percent, nearly half its peak last spring. Forty-six percent say local security has improved in the past six months, nearly double last summer’s level.
The number of Iraqis who feel entirely unsafe in their own area has dropped by two-thirds, to 10 percent. And with Sunni Arab buy-in, U.S.-funded Awakening Councils, created to provide local security, are more popular than the Iraqi government itself.
Even more striking is the halt in worsening views. In August, Iraqis by 61-11 percent said security in the country had gotten worse, not better, in the previous six months. Today, by 36-26 percent, more say security has improved. The new positive margin is not large. But the 35-point drop in views that security is worsening is the single largest change in this poll.
Perhaps most shocking is that 49% of Iraqis, a plurality, feel that the US was right to invade their country. I’d note that the approval of the invasion among Iraqis is now higher than the approval of the Democrat-led Congress among Americans.
Meanwhile, speaking of the state of things in America:
WASHINGTON - Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
This has become a fundamental question in presidential elections. And for the first time since 1992, a plurality of voters heading into November’s election answer that question with a resounding no, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Forty-three percent say that they and their families are worse off, compared with 34 percent who say they’re better off; 21 percent respond that their status is the same. By contrast, strong pluralities or majorities answered that they were better off before entering the general elections in 1996, 2000 and 2004 — when, with the exception of the extremely close 2000 race, the incumbent party held onto the presidency.
Iraqis seem to have a better outlook on their futures than we do. Of course, a lot of the American dissatisfaction stems more from a false perception of strife and economic suffering perpetuated by the media (which needs ratings) and the politicians (who need support for their policies) than reality, but even so. The success in Iraq is palpable.
The only question is why more of our political leadership won’t get behind the success we’re having in Iraq. Outside of most of them being hard-bitten partisans who, mistakenly as it now turns out, invested their political capital in defeat long ago.
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