Originally posted by Liberator
If Iraq were an occupation, that is to say a openly hostile military presence that is unwanted by a majority of the population of an area, I would agree with you.
However, 8 in 10 Iraqis actually like the Americans. They want us to leave, but they want the terrorists gone more and they know that we will leave when the terrorists are gone and Iraq is capable of defending herself.
I'm not sure that's true. There's obviously the 20% Sunni population who want the US gone now, but lets not assume on the rest of the populations opinion; especially as the much vaunted election saw the Pentagons chosen candidate effectively chucked out on his ear by a significant margin.
A Zogby poll in Iraq found that 60-80% of Iraqis want troops to leave after elections - i.e. that'd be now.
This second source -
http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-29-04-2.html - which I don't know the background of (if biased or unbiased) - states a 60% level of opposition. I've never seen
any evidence that 80% of Iraqis like - or even tolerate - the American occupation. Or indeed the troops of the various other nations, such as ourselves, who got stuck in the quagmire. I certainly wouldn't pat yourself on the back too much over any Iraqis choosing the American occupation as the lesser of 2 evils - lesser of 2 evils is still evil, after all.
Except the US won't leave anyways, because they're building military bases there already - and quite a large number of it AFAIK (something like 12-20?). And Iraq makes a good base of operations against Syria and Iran, and seemingly bypasses the political (and logistical in the particular case of Iran) problems that would come from operating another invasion out of Saudi Arabia.
