Here's a batch of statistics that are sure not to show up in tonight's State of the Union address. The Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland reports that
[A] large majority [80 percent] of Iraqis think the US plans to maintain bases in Iraq permanently, even if the newly elected government asks the US to leave. A large majority [70 percent] favors setting a timeline for the withdrawal of US forces, though this majority divides over whether the timeline should be over a period of six months or two years. Nearly half of Iraqis [47 percent] approve of attacks on US-led forces--including nine out of 10 Sunnis [actually 88 percent]. Most Iraqis [67 percent] believe that many aspects of their lives will improve once the US-led forces leave, but are nonetheless uncertain that Iraqi security forces are ready to stand on their own.
There are handy graphs that break down the attitudes by ethnic group, with the Sunnis overwhelmingly negative toward the US and the Kurds largely positive -- except that even 64 percent of the Kurds stand with the larger majorities of other ethnic groups in approving of the Iraqi government setting a timeline for US withdrawal.
There hasn't been much major media coverage of this latest study, except from Knight Ridder newspapers, which add some perspective from Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official and a longtime Iraq watcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center for national-security studies in Washington:
They're pretty much the same results that have been going on since 2003, so it's consistent with a lot of the attitudes that exist.... We're not seen as liberators by the Sunnis, but what else is new?
It was clear after the invasion that about a third or more of Shiites did not see us as liberators, and did not see the war as justified, and somewhere around 15 percent supported attacks on coalition forces then.... We're also seen as creating all kinds of internal problems without creating any kind of internal solutions.
BTW: The future for KR does not portend well, with earnings down as it looks for a buyer. More details here.