Freedom's Fidelity

Friday, June 25, 2004

Handover in the Making

As the Zarqawi strategy promised the days leading up to the June 30th transfer of sovereignty would be full of carnage. Coming to Iraq under the counterfeit cause of expelling the foreign 'occupiers' it was actually the foreign jihadis themselves that yesterday were responsible for coldly killing over 100 Iraqi citizens.

It is their last desperate attempt to derail the Iraqi train to democracy but is too late for that, the jihadis have lost.

A large majority of Iraqis say they have confidence in the new interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi that is set to assume political power on Wednesday, according to a poll commissioned by U.S. officials in Iraq.

...The first survey since the new government was announced by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi about three weeks ago showed that 68 percent of Iraqis have confidence in their new leaders. The numbers are in stark contrast to widespread disillusionment with the previous Iraqi Governing Council, which was made up of 25 members picked by the United States and which served as the Iraqi partner to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Only 28 percent of Iraqis backed the council when it was dissolved last month, according to a similar poll in May.

...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.

Fortunately, and also as the Zarqawi letter predicted, when the terrorists are killing almost exclusively Iraqi citizens they will lose what little support they had. So take heart, amongst all this slaughter, it seems that the Iraqi populous is standing strong, rejecting the status quo of the Middle East and taking hold of the reigns that guide their future.

My heart goes out to them.

posted by Paul  permalink | |