Iraq Opinion Lag Narrows

I’m working on a long two-part essay called The Liberation of Karmah for this site and a shorter piece for Commentary about Kosovo. I’m behind schedule, though, so I’ll leave you with some data to chew on for now.
Last summer when I returned from Baghdad and Ramadi I was disturbed to see that Iraqi public opinion had barely changed in the wake of the surge. There seemed to be a serious disconnect between the hard data and what I had seen with my eyes. I didn’t quite know what to make of it.
In hindsight it makes sense. American public opinion hadn’t budged on Iraq either last summer. Only now is it starting to shift. Iraqis are closer to Iraq than Americans (obviously), but it seems that opinions are slow to change with the facts even there.
A new poll released today shows that Iraqi public opinion — while not yet where we want it to be — now trends in the same direction as the surge. You can “read the whole thing”:http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf (warning: PDF), but here are some samples.