Support for President Bush's management of the Iraq war has dropped to an all-time low even as his overall approval remains tepid but steady, according to a CNN poll released Monday.
The survey, conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp., found support for Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict has decreased to 28 percent from 34 percent in a poll taken October 13-15.
And a record 70 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's war management, up from 64 percent in the October poll.
But don't think this means that a large majority of Americans want withdrawal from Iraq. Indeed, it seems that as long as their kids aren't being drafted to feed the meatgrinder, they're perfectly OK with keeping the current failed policy going:
Though 67 percent of those polled oppose the war in Iraq, only 54 percent said the U.S. should withdraw its troops immediately or within the next year, the poll states.
Asked if they thought victory in Iraq was possible, 48 percent said yes and 50 percent said no. Half of those polled said a stalemate was the most likely outcome of the war.
Who on earth are this 48% who still think victory is possible? Are they SO invested in this notion of American infallibility that they think we can continue to throw money and American blood at Iraq and somehow, magically, victory will result just because we're American? Or is it just that they can't deal with the prospect of an American defeat? Especially when an American defeat in Iraq is going to have ramifications that will affect us -- and not for the better -- for generations to come?
Yesterday Bush's new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity" that would haunt the United States for years. Well, guess what. We have failed in Iraq. And it may very well be that the only way to "succeed" in Iraq is to get the hell out of there and let a U.N. coalition that does NOT include Americans try to straighten it out. We have just too much baggage and have created too much resentment to "succeed" in Iraq -- whatever the hell that might even mean. If failure is not an option, what does success look like? What is the "success", the "victory" that the Administration talks about? Is it Jeffersonian democracy? Is it U.S. control of the Iraqi oil fields? Is it installing a government that's friendly to U.S. interests? Is it an end to the sectarian violence? Is it reconstruction of the Iraq infrastructure to where it was before the president of the United States decided to play out his Oedipal issues there? What does "victory" mean?
I'm beginning to think Charles Rangel is right: Let's have a draft. Let's force Americans to donate their own kids to the cause and then let's see just how much they think victory is possible -- and whether it's worth the cost. It's easy to want to save face using the blood of other people's children. It's only when those who still think victory is possible are willing to put their own kids on the line that we can truly measure support for this war effort.
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