Monday, May 10, 2004
Johann Hari in an Age of Opinion Polls. posted by Richard Seymour
How will Johann Hari manage this? As perhaps the most perfect democrat in the world, Hari has constantly abided by his selection of Iraqi opinion poll results so that he now finds himself aligned with those proposing the end of the occupation of Iraq .In fact, to digress briefly, this sits well with an emerging pattern of pro-war journos and columnists coming out against the war and the occupation (although Hari remains a fervent defender of the Saddam ouster):
Tony Parsons, one of the most forthright critics of antiwar protesters, now says:
"STOP me if I am missing something here, but if former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic can end up on trial for war crimes committed under his leadership, then why can't Tony Blair?"
Minette Marin of the Sunday Times "had faith in America's plan for Iraq" but now confesses that she:
"was wrong ... Meanwhile, Iraqi support for the coalition appears to be dwindling. According to an opinion poll for the newspaper USA Today (published before last week’s torture photos appeared), 82% of people in Baghdad said they saw the coalition forces as occupiers rather than liberators and more than 60% of Arabs across the country, both Sunni and Shia, said the American and British troops should leave immediately. The handover sounds like a dangerous mess and there is talk of partition."
Ah yes, what of that opinion poll? It takes us to the heart of the subject. According to a comprehensive poll of 3,500 Iraqis published in USA Today , 50% say the situation is either "somewhat worse", "much worse" or "about the same" now as it was last year, while U.S.-British military action in Iraq cannot be justified "at all" or "somewhat" according to 52% of Iraqis (26% say it can sometimes, but not other times). Finally, most damningly, 57% of Iraqis say occupying forces should leave "immediately". Yet another poll showed that "a majority of Iraqis said they'd feel safer if the U.S. military withdrew immediately". This poll was taken before the torture scandal, and contains a surprise or two:
For example, while American officials insist that only fringe elements support the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a majority of Iraqis crossed ethnic and sectarian lines to name him the second most-respected man in Iraq, according to the coalition-funded poll.
On top of which, the most recent UK opinion poll shows that 49% of the public now oppose the war , with only 43% in favour. Similarly, according to today's Independent, 55% of the public want a full withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq by June 30th .
Now, since Johann Hari has made a career out of adjusting his view on Iraq according to the latest minutiae of polling data, what can we now expect? Shall he announce that, for example, 47% of him thinks Resistance attacks against the Americans are unjustified while the remaining 53% of him thinks either that it sometimes can, or that it always can? Will he now demand respect for Moqtada al-Sadr, the second most popular mofo in Iraq?
Harry , however, has advised Hari against his fidelity to the Iraqi majority: "My solidarity is not with ‘the Iraqis’ and it never has been. My solidarity is with Iraqi and Kurdish democrats and it is clear at the moment who their main enemy is."
US soldiers? Shurely not! Hari retorts that "If we defy the majority in the name of democracy, what kind of Iraq will the democrats eventually inherit? Won't it be even more radicalised and angry? Won't the democrats - rightly - look out of touch and be deposed swiftly?"
But, after all, Johann, there is a get-out clause which you may adopt. Turn your mind back to his debate with Media Lens :
"Perhaps you don't understand this, but mob rule and democracy are different things. If we determined our policies by who could get the biggest crowd onto the street, we would have the death penalty, deportation of asylum seekers, withdrawal from the EU and god knows what else."
So, Johann could give up tail-coating the opinion polls and make a recommendation based on his view of the actors involved and the likely consequences. It would be unlikely to result in a substantial alteration of his views (which probably reveals something in itself), but it would oblige him to cease this intellectual subterfuge of ducking behind the nearest Iraqi majority. The trouble, of course, with this argument is that he would then be obliged to forget about justifying the war on the post-hoc basis that opinion polls taken after the war showed a majority of Iraqis felt it was worth it. Still, if you want to help Johann reach a failsafe conclusion, you can e-mail him at johann@johannhari.com. As he says "I don't have a fully-formed view on this and I'm eager to hear from everyone." Muck in, chaps!