Charts and graphs are always exciting. They add an undeniable aura of quantification to any set of claims. What I like to do, when I see a graph illustrating some news item, is to guess what is being plotted before reading the text or axes labels very carefully. Here, via Ezra Klein, are the results of a BBC/ABC News poll:
The large-type words at the top give away the basic issue being addressed: has the U.S. "surge" of additional forces into the Baghdad area made things better or worse? But you can still get the picture from glancing at the colorful vertical bars, before reading any of the tiny text. Tiny red and yellow outliers flank a rampant baby-blue cohort. So my guess was, red meant "better," blue meant "stayed the same," while yellow meant "worse." That would reflect what I had been hearing in the wake of Gen. David Petraeus's testimony before Congress, that overall Americans were not in the slightest convinced that the escalation was bringing an end to sectarian and helping to nuture the first flowerings of Iraqi participatory democracy, with checks and balances for all. But no! A glance at the fine print reveals that it was blue that corresponded to "worse," while yellow meant "had no effect." (In my defense, why wasn't "had no effect" put in the middle?) I knew the war and the surge were unpopular, but had no idea they were that unpopular. It takes a dip into the text in the article accompanying the graph to figure out what is going on: this was a poll of Iraqis, not Americans. So now it all makes sense; as unpopular as our military efforts are here at home, it's nothing like the scorn that we receive from the country we are purportedly saving. Admittedly, closer scrutiny did provide clues that the poll might not have been sampling Americans: the question referred specifically to the escalation "in Baghdad and surrounding provinces," rather than just "in Iraq," a distinction that is rather too fine for most Americans to fret about. And there were six different forms of the question, addressing levels of detail that again would not be foremost of the minds of anyone who saw things in terms of supporting vs. attacking our brave men and women in uniform. Like the President. The best argument for leaving Iraq is that the Iraqis don't want us there. (It's not an argument that is discussed very much, for reasons about which you are free to speculate.) This poll from earlier this year is illuminating. On the basic issue of "Do you support the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq?" we find that 46% strongly oppose and 32% somewhat oppose, with only 22% support, strongly or otherwise. It's not completely unambiguous; when asked if those selfsame forces should get up and leave, only 35% just say "leave now" -- which you will notice is smaller than the number who strongly oppose their presence. A full 63% want the forces to stay until they achieve some goal of improving the political or security situation, even though they are not judged to be doing a very good job at that. (The numbers might look worse, post-surge.) Which goes to show that Iraqis don't necessarily think any more clearly about these things than Americans do. Of course, only 1% of Iraqis want American forces to stay forever, which is what our government has been preparing to do. So someone is going to end up being disappointed.
