War in Iraq: Wisdom of Crowds

As we approach the September reports on Iraq, the public debate over our military presence there has once again intensified. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are ratcheting up the rhetoric about the best course of action, with the president using a pit stop in Iraq as a backdrop for his latest remarks. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats on the Hill are engaged in heated discussions -- both within and between their caucuses. Adding to the heat, several third party groups have begun advertising efforts to try and push elected officials one way or the other.

As the Beltway ramps up the debate, I believe it is a good and appropriate time to reflect on the opinions of the people those in our nation's capital serve -- the American public -- and specifically what they believe is the right direction in Iraq. I write this because I am a big believer in the "wisdom of crowds," which is to say that I put just more trust in the collective opinion of 300 million decent, honest and caring Americans than in the elites living in Washington, DC.

This is not to say politics and polls should determine substantive public policy especially regarding a war, but politics and polls should also not be used to thwart the will of the citizens of this country.

Having been a rather keen observer of the American public for more than 20 years and having helped elect and re-elect folks from the State House to the White House I wanted to share with you an analysis of where the public currently stands on the war in Iraq. I share these thoughts as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. While I did serve as Chief Strategist for President Bush in the 2004 campaign, I now consider myself an independent and feel it is a good time to offer what I hope you will find is a measured, reflective and objective analysis of where Democrats and Independents and a large portion of Republican voters stand on the Iraq war today.

1. In the public's mind, the Iraq War was a mistake, and continuing the status quo is simply continuing on with a mistake. As a result, most Americans now view the situation in Iraq as a "rearview" mirror issue -- meaning that the public believes it is time to focus on the process of ending our involvement and getting out quickly. They see American troops as targets in a place we aren't wanted, and they desire a plan which achieves responsible withdrawal in the quickest and safest way.

2. The public does not see withdrawal from Iraq as a signal America doesn't support the troops. In fact, the public sees removing the troops from harm's way and having them in a place where the mission is supported, welcomed and understood as the most proper way to support our troops.

3. The public is waiting for leaders from both political parties to stand up to the president and say enough is enough. They would like this situation resolved -- and soon -- and there is no other solution acceptable to them other than bringing the troops home. The public will support leaders who would use funding decisions as a way to encourage and push the president to resolve this situation quickly.

4. The war in Iraq is now seen exclusively as a foreign policy concern, and the American public no longer supports the initiative as part of national security. This is in stark contrast to the war's beginning -- at inception, the public perceived it as directly related to fighting terrorism, and thus it was seen as a domestic policy issue connected to homeland security. Not surprisingly, the public gave it broad support. Today, this is no longer the case -- the dynamic has changed and most of the public sees no "positive" relationship between the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

I hope this analysis helps bolster the leaders who are ready to stand up for the troops and for the vast majority of Americans in this country. Not only is truth on those leaders' side, but politics is as well. It is my opinion that the best leaders are those who trust the will of the public, even if that means changing direction or admitting a mistake. This is true leadership and the kind of leadership our nation has always desired.

Comments

[djny10003]

It looks like Matthew is out of the White House bubble and back to reality. Welcome back, but I must say that I for one am very tired of Bush enablers coming out years later and saying, oh sorry, Bush is really a bad president after all.

Thanks for your analysis, Matt, too little, too late.

[gcallaghan]

I, for one, do not welcome these white house traitors to walk among us. They are leaving and breaking ranks because they know the end is coming. As the administration is slowly crippled by the internal dissent and turnover, these ship-jumping rats can do far less damage to the country if we throw them back from whence they flee.

[scooperss]

Agreed. Why give praise for doing what they should have done years ago? Why fawn over them now, when in all probability, if given the chance they will do the same thing again? Most just will be looking for the next *bush*.

[RogueCowboy]

According to the Bush Administration and THE GENERALS ON THE GROUND:
June 24, 2003, President Bush declared al-Qaeda's leadership largely defunct
2003 Mission Accomplished
2004 We are making PROGRESS
2005 We are in the LAST THROES
2006 We should be able to draw down troops starting in Sept 2006
2007 January: A Surge of 22,500 will show significant results by July 2007
2007 July: We are making progress, wait until September
2007 September: We are making progress, wait until September 2008. We have only had the "SURGE" for 3 months.

If we STAY THE COURSE for one more year only 1000 more American Troops will die, 6000 more American Troops will be Wounded, 2500 Iraqi Security Forces will be killed, 10,000 Iraqi Security Forces will be Wounded, 15,000 more Iraqi Civilians will be KILLED, 40,000 more Iraqi Civilians will be wounded, 750,000 more Iraqis will be displaced from their homes, the Iraqi Parliament will meet 3 more of the 2007 benchmarks, still less than 50% of the 18 benchmarks and The GENERALS on the GROUND will report they are making progress and ask for 1 more year. The Bush Administration will ask for anther $200 Billion for 2009.
WAKE UP AMERICA! We should not have our Military trying to referee a CIVIL WAR in a country where democracy is a FOREIGN WORD and may NEVER be achieved.

[frankifrost]

M.I.T. AND JOHN HOPKINS HAVE SPONSORED A STUDY THAT ESTIMATES CLOSE TO ONE MILLION IRAQI DEATHS AS WELL AS TWO MILLION OR MORE DISPLACED.

[tiggersthotfulspot]

2 million or more internally displaced, and 2 million or more who have fled Iraq. The worst refugee problem in the world.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2640418.ece

[xrepublican]

It's time to sweep DC clean on both sides of the aisle.

NEITHER party's leaders give a damn about what the electorate thinks. NEITHER party's elected reps are doing their jobs and upholding their oaths to defend our Constitution.

We the people can't afford to leave government in the hands of the "professional" politicians. All they care about is power and money.

Bush and his followers are delusional - doing all they can to profit as much as possible from their loot-fest while putting off ANY action in Iraq so the next Administration can be blamed for THEIR failures.

The Dems are content to sit by and do NOTHING - figuring that whatever happens, they'll get elected in 2008 and have the reins of power for a decade or so..... of course they don't have any real plan for anything either.... they'll find some excuse to keep troops around to guard the oil we "need", continue shipping jobs overseas to please corporate contributors and be thrilled to use the expanded "unitary" executive - instead of undoing all the damage done by Bu$hco.

Screw them all.

[mendez]

You are absolutely correct. Those who feel another Clinton or any Democrat will change anything are misguided. Our Congress is completely corrupt and criminal in its actions. Punishment must come before we can continue; laws must be changed to insure what has happened, never happens again.

[Flynnstone73]

HERE HERE. It's time top clean house. Thomas Jefferson would tell you this has been long overdo. We are becoming a plutocracy and it is time for the hired hands to stand up and say enough is enough.

[cuzkate]

And anybody who looks like them!

[grendl]

The people who need polling more than we do, are the people of Iraq.

We’ve been polled enough. We’ve weighed in enough. So many differing opinions on how to proceed in Iraq, while always great fodder for the blogosphere, aren’t very relevant.

Or aren’t as relevant as the people who matter most, in the case of Iraq. The parties within whom presumably the power of democracy rests. The people of Iraq.

Who’s polling them? How do they feel about democracy? Do they understand its foundational tenets? Do they believe in the truths our forefathers posited as self evidenciary, that all men are created equal?

Would a Sunni die for a Shiites right to vote? It sounds a bit farfetched, doesn’t it. Yet people of all faiths in this country die for people of other faiths all the time. Because a sense of patriotism and nationalistic pride was instilled in our national consciousness upon our formation. We broke from our oppressor, Mother England, and put aside religious differences to assert our sovereignty.

A tribalistic nation stitched together like Iraq doesn’t seem to have the same sense of unity or national identity. For chrissakes, they can’t even win a soccer game as a nation without fifty people getting gunned down. Can we spend just a few million of our tax dollars to poll the people of Iraq and see what the hell they think of this gift we’ve laid at their feet? Or better yet put it to a vote.

Let them see the true power of the ballot box, and Democracy and let them vote on the American occupation. Let them vote us out of their country, and by doing so show the Muslim world the beauty of the process.

[JGatsby]

Actually, the people of Iraq have been polled. Of course its either ignored or printed on the back pages in the MSM but the one thing they agree on (apx. 3/4 of those polled) is that they want US forces out either imediately or within a year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601721.html

[tiggersthotfulspot]

In a poll I doubt that any Iraqis would use the word "gift" to describe what America has done to their country, littering it with corpses, depleted uranium ordnance, etc.

This is a really screwed up country where we imagine ourselves as "gift givers" while causing the deaths of one million people, the homelessness of four million others, and a humanitarian crisis bigger than anything the region has ever seen.

[andyboy]

There is a blanket order in Iraq that prevents anyone from talking about the war. Read a few articles and notice how everyone who is quoted is accompanied by a disclaimer that they "aren't allowed to comment".

This is so only the lies make it out of Iraq.

This is also one of the main reasons the American people are so confused and in the dark about this whole fiasco.

Barack Obama & Hillary know this only too well. They should be screaming it from the Hill all day every day.

[deminmo]

Grendl, I think you have hit on something! That voting us out of Iraq...tha­t would be Democracy!

[kentuck]

As John McCain set Mitt Romney straight on the surge... when Romney said that the surge is "apparently working", McCain said "it is working" - not apparently. And that is the certainty with which the Republicans wish for the American people to look at the Iraq War in totality. It is working!

The only problem is: It is not working. John McCain and Lindsey Graham cannot walk the streets of Baghdad without being protected by the American military or they would be killed. The Iraqi people have less of everything, including gasoline, electricity, education, and security. Many would argue that they even have less "freedom". After all, what good is "freedom" if you can't use it?

The people may be against the war by a huge majority but that does not keep the Republicans from standing behind their President. They have no fear of the voters. They believe they spin anything to protect their positions. Therefore the Congress is frozen in partisanship and indecision.

The status quo may have to stand until the election of 2008. If the majority of the people vote the way they now believe, it is they, the People, that will decide the future course of Iraq, the war, and the Republican and Democratic Parties - not the Congress or the Senate. Let it simmer until 2008 at your own risk.

[avrao]

Why should anyone else own this war but Bush. The surge was crafted to protect GWB from how history will judge him, not to provide a strategy to win the war. Graham and other republicans are enablers with their talk of supporting the president. They support the president only so that they can carry this war to the doorsteps of the 2008 election. Then it will be someone else's problem. Watch how the republican's & their talk-show enablers walk away from everything they have said if a democrat wins the WH in '08. It is a shame on our democracy and our two party system that doesn't allow a voice of dissent.

[thgy]

The status quo may have to stand until the election of 2008.

We can't let that happen, there is no real debate in this country because of our risk adverse congress and the MSM. And the republicans in California are trying to rig the 2008 election (think four years of McCain, Rudy or Mitt).

Fights in the congress, to end the war or even better to impeach Bush and Cheney, would start a national debate that the MSM could not ignore and it might even get away from them so that they couldn't control the message.

[Marlyn]

2008 is too late. The time to impeach is now!

HouseRes. 333 IMPEACH Cheney first.

[JacktheBlogger]

Matt,

It would be nice if you had apologized to the American public as well - after all you did contribute to the prolonging of this "mistake" as "Chief Strategist for President Bush in the 2004 campaign." In simpler terms, President Kerry would have ended this war by now!

Also, I wish people spoke truth to power when they were in a position to make a difference. At this point in time, unfortunately - you are too little, too late! Nonetheless, your mea culpa might enable you to sleep better at night.

[Steve Petrisky]

Don't blame him, jack, when the entire Congress is ignorant of the own laws they pass. The Authorization to Use Force in Iraq (Oct 2002) was legal for only 60 days. After that, a formal Congressional declaration of war or another authorization was required. Why this hand-wringing over consensus and supporting the troops? There is no legal basis to be occupying Iraq! Google the War Powers Act to see what our federal law is (no commitment of US troops beyond 60 days without a declaration of war).

[thgy]

Is that true? And all these years congress has just ignored it and hoped no one would notice so that wouldn't have take the risk of doing the work of our democracy? They like to keep everything neutered over there in Washington, the land of fake filibusters. To take a strong position might cost them re election and they would loose the perks of power.
The cowards are despicable, all of them not Russ Feingold though.

[Enid]

Well it is he, G.W. Bush who took a horrible crime against the people of New York and the US.
A criminal act not the act of war that it was turned into.

Saudi citizens ramming planes into US building.

No inquire just bomb Iraqi and make every thing Iraq's fault.

Swallow gulp!!

[deminmo]

Steve, I think its a case of selective amnesia.

[davesideas]

Well and concisely put; I only wonder how long we are going to have to continue to belabor the obvious.

[LizM]

The kind of leadership that the US needs is the kind that can be described as strong and intelligent and than can persuade the electorate to support what is the right course of action, regardless of what they may think. THAT's what real leadership is all about.

And besides, the US electorate has NOT demonstrated, over the course of the last six years, that they can be trusted to have the right judgement on Iraq or any other issue...pl­ease...

[dwillisno1]

A leader is the one who takes the right steps to make it most likely that the course of action to which the electorate is being persuaded is the right one in the first place and also possesses the proper amount of self doubt, so that that leader can be persuaded to change course when the course of action is wrong. George W Bush meets neither standard.

[LizM]

Agreed!

[speckitis]

I'd like to add that a leader also acknowledges mistakes; they realize that when you make no mistakes, you have no mistakes from which to learn....

[FOXYLADY]

IGNORANCE IS BLISS, THEY SAY......"­W" IS THE MOST BLISSFUL HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW......J­UST TOO THICK HEADED TO SEE THE TRUTH.

[apogee2perogee]

A leader needs vision and insight. Vision is imagining what could be. For that vision to be realistic, it must be grounded in insight. Insight is the knowledge needed to accurately predict the consequences of choices. When a good leader envisions a path forward it is grounded in the knowledge of insight and formed with good perception and judgement. Insight must often be acquired from others. For that to work well, the trusted advisers must also use good perception and judgement. That standard is much different than finding people who see the same path forward.

[mommadona]

"And besides, the US electorate has NOT demonstrated, over the course of the last six years, that they can be trusted to have the right judgement on Iraq or any other issue...pl­ease..."

If this wasn't a sarcastic remark on your end, I cannot believe you actually said that....

[LizM]

I have a tendency to make myself about as clear as mud...espe­cially when I'm tired!

I mean, the Bush administration was elected...­twice...th­at, in my humble opinion, is evidence of poor judgement.

[strangelet]

Well, there's a NYT/CBS poll out today that among other things says 40% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats believe Sadaam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Gives ME a lot of confidence in the electorate, for sure.

[KarenM]

I'd rather ask what took you so long?

[SwimminCA]

I couldn't agree with you more Matthew but don't expect your former boss to do anything of the sort. He's determined to COMPLETELY IGNORE American public opinion on the Iraq war, run out the clock, and hand this mess off to his successor while American soldiers die and the Iraqi leaders dither.

[NOMOREWAR FORISRAEL]

Why Did General Keane Violate His Oath to the Constitution?

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=78591

Viewer call for GAO head David Walker about the Mearsheimer/Walt book on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' last week:

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/09/israel-lobby-and-us-foreign-policy.html

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:

http://tinyurl.com/2KHCED

US Support of Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians PRIMARY MOTIVATION for tragic attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and on 9/11:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590

http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com

[FOXYLADY]

"BRUTAL OPPRESSION OF THE PALES?" WEREN'T THEY OFFERED A STATE AGES AGO, BUT REFUSED? DIDN'T THEIR LEADERS DURING THIS DEBATE ALWAYS ALWAYS DENY AND REFUSE ANY SANE AGREEMENT? WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE MONIES GIVEN TO THE SO CALLED PALESTINIANS THROUGHOUT THIS "DISCUSSION"? COME ON NOW.....YO­U ISRAEL BASHERS...­...THESE SO CALLED PALESTINIANS ARE MOSTLY CAST OFF ARABS FROM EVERY NATION IN THE AREA OF ISRAEL...C­HECK OUT YOUR HISTORY BEFORE YOU SPEW YOUR PROPAGANDA­....

[mommadona]

Well, if it takes a person with a "name" to say what most people I know on blogs have been saying for the last 5 years, so be it.

Yep. That about sums it up.

Oh, and you may want to include the "consensus" that the Executive Branch is a failure and all members should step down voluntarily otherwise the legal process of impeachment will be started.

Yep. There you go.

[BLOGGINGBITCH]

The tactics that got us into this war will become legal if nothing is done before Bush leaves.


Can't you hear it now: "Well, Bush did it".

.

[avergejoe]

They already are: (and worse)

From HumanEvents 03/20/07:
For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.
Why did Pelosi capitulate? Answer: She was "under pressure from some conservative members of her caucus, and from lobbyists associated with neoconservative groups that want war with Iran and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC),"
"Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."