But 73 percent of Iraqis polled approved of Allawi to lead the new government, 84 percent approved of President Ghazi Yawar and almost two-thirds backed the new Cabinet. These impressive showings indicate that the new leaders have support spanning ethnic and religious groups, U.S. officials said.
"What comes across in the poll and what we've sensed for a while is that Iraqis remain open-minded about the new government," a senior coalition official in Baghdad said in an interview.
Four out of every five Iraqis expected that the new government will "make things better" for Iraq after the handover, with 10 percent expecting the situation to remain the same and 7 percent anticipating a decline, the poll shows.
There is also great support for the new military and police.
PS: The WaPo picture caption for this article says "President Ayad Allawi had approval rating of 73 percent." The new president of Iraq, with mostly ceremonial functions, is Ghazi Yawar, and he has an approval rating of 84%. Ayad Allawi is prime minister.
If you're looking for the sane left, visit Rob Salkowitz's Emphasis Added blog. He has an interesting discussion of the tendnecy to lump all Iraq war opponents together with the loonie left aka A.N.S.W.E.R., Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. No doubt it is easier for us war proponents, moderates and rightists alike, to slam wingnuts than dealing with more sane centrist arguments. It must be said, however, that the left is not making it easier for itself (or us) these days.
The big lie of leftist ideology is the myth of the righteous victim. The late philosopher Edward Said got that ball rolling with respect to the Arab Middle East with his 1977 work Orientalism and in subsequent books such as Covering Islam. Couched in the high moral language of liberation and revolution, Said’s theories drip with self-pity and counter-historical assumptions about cause-and-effect that are as misleading as they are self-serving.
Also check out a thoughtful followup on Edward Said.
I'll still say that the right is much better at distancing itself from its wingnuts than the left. That's my story and I stick to it.
There is further movement on the discussions between the US and North Korea on nuclear disarmament, but it is unclear whether it is in the right direction. A clear escalation is the threat from NK to test a nuclear weapon unless the US accepts its conditions for a freeze.
Pyongyang has reportedly asked for the delivery of the equivalent of 2000 Megawatt of electric power per year, roughly 25% of the country's total consumption, in return for a nuclear freeze. Russia, South Korea and Japan have all been willing to contribute fuel oil to meet NK's energy needs.
China seems to have decided to cancel the closing ceremony for the talks, indicating the country considered it a failure, even though it denied this interpretation.
Personally I have my doubts whether the NK will test a nuclear device. The country is unlikely to have more than a handful currently in its arsenal (US intelligence, for whatever its worth, says one or two). The risk of a public failure in a test explosion is always there, which would lead to a loss of face and loss of its main bargaining chip. And even if the test is a success, with the increased deterrence it would be to the world to see absolute evidence NK has nuclear capability, it would mean one less nuke.
If the world gives NK free fuel or energy, are we then giving in to blackmail and getting ourselves into more grief down the line? Hard question. What is to stop NK from repeating the whole mess four or five years down the line with a new set of outragous demands? Not Kim Jong-Il's sense of decency, that's for sure.
