The War And Public Opinion

A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds increasing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq with a majority saying the war was not worth it for the first time since the war began.

In some ways this is worrying, in other ways its unsurprising. The media has been campaigning against the war for some time, trying to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the war. Given the drumbeat of relentlessly anti-war news it’s no surprise that public opinion has shifted.

Another reason is that the administration has done a piss-poor job of making their case in the past few weeks. Only very recently has the Bush Administration gone out and defended themselves, and only on the Iraq/al-Qaeda issue. The lack of an offensive strategy means that the only voices that are being heard are the anti-war voices.

The most crucial reason, however, is the fact that the war is currently going through its most difficult phase. The violence has increased as al-Zarqawi’s thugs try to prevent the handover of sovereignty. The CPA has become a lame duck. The death rate of soldiers has not decreased, and our successes in the Shi’a south are being overshadowed by our failure to defeat the terrorists of Fallujah. The coalition made a critical mistake by allowing the Iraqis to take over Fallujah. We would have suffered some losses entering and pacifying the city, but we’ve already lost more to random acts of terrorism because we didn’t. We need to find and kill Zarqawi and crush the terrorists operating out of Fallujah – we need to make it very clear that we will not tolerate terrorism in Iraq.

Nothing succeeds like success, and right now the military needs to show a major success in order to highlight the fact that the shrill anti-war reporting from the mainstream media isn’t the whole story. Public opinion is fickle, and the administration needs to realize that there’s a war going on at home that will directly effect our ability to fight the war abroad.