Suffice it to say that most, if not all, Sunni Arabs are not happy about the invasion. They have no reason to be. The Kurds, OTOH, have lots of reason to be happy about it. Both make about 20% of the Iraqi population, so let’s just say they cancel each other out on the subject.
That leaves the Shiiite Arabs. I don’t know what results a poll among them would produce, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a plurality were glad, give the choice of Saddam or the US invasion. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was the other way 'round, either.
The Christians probably aren’t too happy, if any of them are even left in the country. But once you get out of the “Big 3” ethnic groups, you’r down in the single digits in terms of % of population.
I did a bit of googling to see if there were any recent polling results but no success. Does anyone have a cite that can answer the question one way or another? That would seem to be the starting point if we, in fact, are interested in fighting ignorance on this subject.
If Iraq is left a broken, shattered non-state wracked by internal divisions and security failures… Isn’t that the point of War? Sounds like a win to me. The entire notion that the invasion was to benefit the Iraqi people was a neoconservative fantasy.
Also, I should point out that the Iraqi civil war was entirely their own doing. And by 2011, Iraq was doing quite well. The fact that Maliki chose to alienate the Sunnis and antagonize them after we withdrew was entirely his own doing. These people could have chosen to create a cohesive and inclusive society rather than turn on each other, and while the Bush administration bears responsibility for many sins let’s not forget that much of this was caused by the Iraqis themselves and the fact that Iraq is an incoherent failure that was only glued together by a violent dictator.
OK, this is from 2006, so not particularly recent. However, that was during some of the worst fighting of the civil war, so it might (and I emphasis might) represent a low point in Iraqi opinion about the war. The Iraqi Public on the US Presence and the Future of Iraq. PDF. See p15:
It goes on to breakdown: 75% of Shia (Arab), 81% of Kurds, 11% of Sunni (Arab).
It would seem there was a time (and from that survey, it’s at least several years), that most Iraqis thought the invasion was worth it. If one wants to argue that that does not mean they are grateful GWB led the invasion, I suppose that’s something to hang onto and probably not something any poll is going to resolve explicitly.
N.B.: The poll is 10 years old, and the results could be very different today. I’d welcome any newer information anyone has on the subject.
I once read a newspaper article with a headline like “Most Indians support racial harmony”. In the article we learned that “only” 35% (or such) of Indians supported massacres of Muslims. :smack:
Similarly, that 25% of Shia were not happy to get rid of the dictator that oppressed them seems significant.
And only 11% of Sunni believed the ousting was worth the cost!?! :eek: Remember: not all Sunni were among Saddam’s empowered elite.
And I doubt if Iraqis who had already emigrated in desperation were asked to participate in the poll.
On a semi-related note, when did The New Yorker decide it wanted to compete with The Onion? The Borowitz Report headlines show up on my Yahoo front page to an annoying degree, right along with the rest of the clickbait. It’s taken me a month to train myself to see those New Yorker links and realize they’re not actual journalism.
I have read articles showing such disagreement but that is irrelevant to my recent post. I was merely showing you another way to interpret the poll results you quote.
I have read articles showing such disagreement but that is irrelevant to my recent post. I was merely showing you another way to interpret the poll results you quote.