Brian Vogt posted a good graphic the other day (at least by the standards of our blog, where I don’t contribute graphics at all) on Iraqi public support for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. I’m less interested in that sort of poll than he is, both because I’m skeptical that the poll numbers mean anything — even more skeptical of polling techniques in Iraq than in the U.S. — and also because I don’t think that Iraqi opinion should influence U.S. policy very much, because U.S. policy should be based on the American national interest.

Of course, I think the U.S. should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in short order, and if potential political allies want reason that we should withdraw because of Iraqi opinion, I would be happy to cooperate with those allies to achieve my desired political result.

But it’s also worth thinking about what’s going on in the poll that Brian cites. I don’t think it’s surprising that both the Sunnis and the Shiites want the U.S. to leave while the Kurds want us to stay. Things are relatively good for the Kurds right now, so they want minimal change in the status quo. The Sunnis and the Shiites both have problems with the current situation, and both exaggerate their prospects to do better once the U.S. leaves. The Shiites think the U.S. forces them to pay attention to the Sunnis, whom they beat in the elections and whom they believe they could beat on the battlefield through sheer force of numbers. Meanwhile, the Sunnis (if you accept the polls) believe that they constitute 50% of the population of Iraq, so they think they could win the ensuing war — in fact, they believe that the only reason that they haven’t won already is that the U.S. props up the Shiites. Those inconsistent beliefs explain the on-going sectarian civil war and why only a U.S. withdrawal (whether or not it leads to post-withdrawal escalation of violence) can end the fighting.

Meanwhile, Marc Lynch (aka Abu Aardvark) has posted some interesting notes on a broader poll of Arab public opinion in six countries (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates). For those who worry about a global “war of ideas” these days, things don’t seem to be going well for the United States. Again, I wouldn’t read much into these results, but I thought the cite was interesting.

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