There appears to be a wide chasm between perception and reality over Iraq. Constant attacks against American and allied forces and spectaculars like the shooting down of Black Hawk helicopters and the killing of 19 Italian carabinieri convey the impression that the insurgents are growing in strength and capability. Not so, says US governor in Iraq Paul Bremer. Improved defensive measures and a more aggressive approach against Saddam Hussein loyalists have changed matters. Attacks on coalition forces have significantly declined in the past two weeks. Instead, the insurgents have turned their fury against the softer target of Iraqis involved in the new order.
Two weeks is a very short time on which to base any definitive conclusions. But if this shift turns out to be true, then it suggests that the Baathist remnants are less a force than imagined. They do not have the capability to mount anything other than the occasional if spectacular attack.
That may make the headlines, but it is not going to change the course of events. Even Saturday’s suicide attacks on police stations north of Baghdad are unlikely to stem the flow of volunteers for the police and military — although they raise the urgent question of what is to be done to protect Iraqis if they are now the target.
The gap between perception and reality is seen elsewhere. The general view outside Iraq is that Iraqis want US troops out of the country. But opinion polls show that most Iraqis want the Americans to remain, not because they do not want to be masters in their own country but because they fear civil war if there is a pullout now.
These perceptions have to be put down in large measure to wishful thinking.
There is a widespread view, not only here in the Middle East, that Iraq is not going to make it, that the situation is going to spiral down into bloody civil war. It may. But the sad reality is that most who take this view do so knowing little about Iraq and caring even less. They want it to end that way. They want it to fail because they want it to be a disaster for the US. They want George W. Bush to be humiliated.
But what about the Iraqis? Surely, it is what they want that matters — and what they want is for this difficult, painful transition to succeed, as soon as possible, in producing a free, stable, and prosperous Iraq. They do not want it to fail — as fail it certainly will if the Americans pull out now. That would be the surest route to civil war in Iraq, with all the dangers that that would bring for peace in the region.
Instead of thinking about the Americans, we need to think what Iraqis want and need. That has to come first.
