Iraq Now

Juan Cole has another of his always excellent pieces on the happenings in Iraq this morning. He has a recent poll of Iraqis' that says it all:

Iraqi Public Opinion
** Only 33 percent of Iraqis think they're better off now than before the war, as a Gallup poll discovered.
** Just 36 percent believe the interim government shares their values.
** 94 percent say Baghdad is more dangerous than it was before the war.
** 66.6 believe the US occupation could start a civil war.
** 80 percent want the US to leave directly after the January elections.

So much for improving the life of the Iraqi people and nation building. Jazz has a couple of good posts over at Running Scared this morning on the situation in Iraq.

• The first is on the Charles Krauthammer editorial, Writing Off the Sunni where he discusses the probability of civil war in Iraq.


• The second is about the Kurds, Meet the Kurds, a group that is ignored most of the time but should not be. I discussed the Kurds here back in June and suggested it was a mistake to ignore them.