Flickr/ISAF
There are some serious logistical challenges to conducting polls in Afghanistan, so I'd take these numbers with a grain of salt. According to a recent BBC poll, Afghans are both more optimistic about the direction of their country and supportive of the foreign troop presence:
Of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned, 70% said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a big jump from 40% a year ago.Of those questioned, 68% now back the presence of US troops in Afghanistan, compared with 63% a year ago.
Just to put that in perspective, a recent CNN poll found that only 59 percent of Americans supported Obama's decision to escalate troop levels. Afghans are split on how long troops should stay: 47 percent say they should leave within 18 months, whilde 49 percent say they should stay longer or that withdrawal should "depend on the security situation." The plan announced by the president in December calls for troops to begin withdrawing in July of 2011.
As in the U.S., the economy is the top issue -- 34 percent of Afghan say it's most important. "Security/warlords/attacks/violence" comes second at 32 percent, down six points from 2009. Ninety percent of Afghans would prefer the current government to the Taliban, which only gets a 6 percent approval rating. Hamid Karzai has a suspiciously high approval for someone who stole an election, with 72 percent of respondents giving him an "excellent" or "good" rating.
At the same time, when asked "How much of a problem is the issue of corruption among government officials or the police in this area?," seventy-six percent of respondents said it was a "big problem." That seems somewhat incompatible with the idea that Karzai is doing a really good job, and may suggest that some people aren't comfortable expressing how they really feel.
