polling Iraqis

The new poll of Iraqi attitudes towards the occupation by ABC, German network ARD, the BBC and Japan's NHK seems at first glance to be a resounding validation of support.

However, the ethnic breakdown is very revealing. Josh Marshall summarizes:

For instance, 48% of Iraqis say the US was right to invade, versus 39% who say it was wrong. But the breakdown shows that 40% of Arab Iraqis say it was right while 87% of Iraqi Kurds say it was the right thing to do.

There's a similar disparity on the related question of whether Iraq was 'liberated rather than humiliated.' A third of Iraqi Arabs say yes, while 82% of Kurds answered in the affirmative.

In other words, a significant majority of Arab Iraqis still do not credit the US with success or even good will intent. The overwhelming support for the US invasion among Kurds is fairly obvious - the Kurds enjoyed almost total autonomy between the two Gulf Wars and the new interim Constitution is being widely criticized by Shi'a for giving the Kurds disproportionate power (something that Steven den Beste missed, it seems, in his analysis earlier).