Herald.com | 12/16/2005 | Hurricane Katrina's impact on Iraq

Hurricane Katrina's impact on Iraq

BY FRIDA GHITIS

As with virtually every new political step in post-Saddam Iraq, Thursday's vote by millions of Iraqis choosing a new government brings enormous expectations. Iraq's brave and determined voters present a powerful counterattack against extremist jihadists who would turn the country into an oppressive theocracy. And then, there's that other challenging goal, the need to recover from the damages wrought by Katrina on Iraq. Yes, that Katrina.

Of all the threats the Iraqi nation has faced in the last few decades -- wars against Iran and Kuwait, an American invasion, waves of suicide bombings, an incipient civil war -- none came more unexpectedly than Hurricane Katrina. The storm that battered the U.S. Gulf Coast more than 7,000 miles away from Baghdad didn't spill a drop of water on the Iraqi desert. And yet, it broke apart the leaking levees that had precariously held back the doubts of the American public about its government policies in Iraq.

When the structures collapsed, the White House found itself drowning in a sea of plummeting approval ratings. For Iraq, this meant the enormous danger that Washington would make decisions based more on boosting ratings than on improving the chances of success for their fledgling democracy.

To be sure, support for the Iraq campaign had been on a steady slide before Katrina struck in late August. But the floor collapsed after the calamity that followed the hurricane. For millions of Americans, Katrina left a nearly indelible impression that this administration is incompetent, unreliable and duplicitous. If it couldn't be trusted in New Orleans and Mississippi, it could not be trusted in Iraq.

Support for the war crumbled along with President Bush's overall approval ratings. In the weeks after Katrina, a Gallup poll showed a jump of almost 10 percent in the number of Americans disapproving of Mr. Bush's job in Iraq. The number of people saying they believe the administration deliberately lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction also jumped. As the mold grew on the walls of devastated New Orleans homes, pessimism about Iraq became rooted in the American psyche.

Ironically, the Iraqi people have remained extraordinarily optimistic about the prospects for their own country. A recent poll conducted by Oxford Research International on behalf of five media organizations from Japan, Germany, the United States and the UK, found more than 70 percent of Iraqis saying their lives are good or very good. That's unchanged from a similar poll last year.
Iraqis, most of whom said they personally feel secure in their own neighborhoods and in their own lives, expressed concerns for their country; but two-thirds of those polled said they believe life will improve next year.

And, with incomes up an average of 60 percent in the last 20 months, 70 percent said their economic situation was good. Not surprisingly, a majority (65 percent) of Iraqis said they oppose the U.S. presence there, but only 26 percent said they want the troops out immediately. Iraqis, like many Americans -- including many who opposed the war -- know that a departure by U.S. forces now, with only a semi-trained Iraqi army in place, would bring disaster.

Perhaps most encouraging of all were the political preferences reflected in the poll. Some 57 percent said they want a democracy, versus just 14 percent who want an Islamic state. That's a drop in support for religious regime from the last time the question was asked. A ''strong leader'' was the choice of 26 percent.
Of course, in a war situation the bullets can prevail over the wishes of the majority. If the 14 percent who want an Islamic state win on the battlefield, the 57 percent who want democracy may never vote again.

Is that likely to happen? A poll by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations showed two different views in America.

The survey, released a few weeks ago, showed that 64 percent of U.S. military officers believe the United States will succeed in establishing a successful democracy in Iraq. When pollsters asked journalists and academics the same question, fewer than one third of them said Iraq would become a stable democracy.

Who's right -- the Iraqi people, the military officers or the journalists and academics? That will depend, in large part, on what the United States does. In the end, it may all depend on whether Iraqi voters succeed in recovering from the effect of hurricane Katrina.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.