Mission accomplished. According to the new NEWSWEEK poll, Americans back the ISG’s recommendations by a two-to-one margin. In interviews with 1,000 adults done Dec. 6 and Dec. 7, 39 percent of Americans said they generally agree with the group’s 79 recommendations, while 20 percent said they disagree. (Twenty-six percent said, in effect: “Report, what report?”)
What is the new consensus? Nearly two out of three Americans (65 percent) concur with the Iraq Study Group that the U.S. should threaten to reduce economic and military aid to the Baghdad government unless it meets benchmarks for security and development. Fifty-seven percent believe Washington should reach out to its adversaries Iran and Syria in an effort to stabilize Iraq. And 61 percent believe Washington should launch a new and sustained effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[....]
That places the president in a distinct minority. According to the NEWSWEEK poll, more than two out of three Americans believe the United States is losing ground in Iraq (68 percent), versus 21 percent who say it is making progress—the most pessimistic assessment the NEWSWEEK poll has ever recorded. A near-record 53 percent believe invading Iraq was a mistake, compared to 39 percent who say it was the right course of action.
In fact, the public goes farther than the Baker-Hamilton report. Sixty-two percent of Americans want the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawal. And not in the distant future. Forty-eight percent of Americans want U.S. soldiers and Marines to come home now or within the next year. Add in the 19 percent who say they would support U.S. troops remaining in Iraq one to two years more and 67 percent of Americans say they would support keeping large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq for no more than another year or two.
Only 23 percent of Americas sound like the president, arguing that troops should stay in Iraq “as long as it takes to achieve U.S. goals,” the lowest percentage ever recorded in the NEWSWEEK poll.
The Newsweek poll supports the AP-Ipsos poll results in yesterday's posting--Americans want out of Iraq. Now, the AP-Ipsos poll was taken before the Iraq Study Group report was published, while the Newsweek poll was taken afterwards. The ISG report has become the workable solution that Americans want for getting out of Iraq. This Newsweek poll came out on the weekend just after the ISG report was published last Wednesday, which explains the 26 percent of Americans who did not know of the report. But take this percentage of Americans who didn't know of the report out, and you still have a strong majority of Americans who agree with the ISG recommendations. You still have a majority of Americans who believe that the U.S. is losing in Iraq, and who want the Bush administration to set up a two-year timetable for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
Americans want to change course regarding Iraq.
And what is the Bush administration's response to this? It is pretty straight forward:
That’s bad news for President George W. Bush since it’s unclear whether the new consensus has been adopted by the White House. Though the president called the Baker-Hamilton report “constructive,” in a press conference on Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s closest ally, the president signaled resistance to at least two of the key proposals: drawing down U.S. combat troops in Iraq by early 2008, and talking to Iran and Syria. “One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust and say it’s just not worth it,” said Bush, adding, “I believe we’ll prevail.”
We’re staying the course dammit because I said so!
2 comments:
“The question today is, do we break faith with our dead soldiers by staying the course in Iraq, or by cutting and running? Or are there other options beyond the widely criticized Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report? I propose that there is only one viable option and that it to show the world that we do have a center – a moral core – National unity – the will to win.”
http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/
Do we break faith with our dead soldiers by staying the course in Iraq or by cutting and running? Are you saying that by cutting and running, we have destroyed the faith of our dead soldiers? And that the only way to maintain our faith with our dead soldiers is to continue this war--continue wasting more young American lives in a disastrous war that we can never win? This war is lost. The United States is stuck in the middle of an ethnic civil war, where Shiites are killing Sunnis--and visa verse. We are stuck in a mess of our own creation, where pretty much both ethnic groups--Shiites and Sunnis want us out of Iraq (While the Kurds want to be left alone to create their own homeland, thus angering Turkey. And the Kurds will use the U.S. to accomplish their own goal of an independent Kurdish homeland.). Look at the Newsweek and the AP-Ispos polls--both polls show a majority of Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq within the next two years! Both the Newsweek and AP-Ipsos polls also show that the American people know that the U.S. has lost this war in Iraq! There is no winnable strategy here. There is no moral core here! The real question you should be asking is how many more young American lives are going to be wasted in this disaster of a war.
It is time to get out of Iraq--NOW!
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