Bossman Harold's column in The Washington Post today is well worth a read. The war in Iraq has become an anti-democratic, raw exercise of power by political elites that's demonstrated their troubling ability to ignore and resist public sentiment. It has, at base called into question whether the state is at all responsive to its citizens. But it goes even farther than that. The American people aren't the only relevant population overwhelmingly opposed to the occupation of Iraq. The Iraqi people want us gone, too. But despite our constant reiteration that our only interest in Iraq is the creation of a democratic state where the people decide their future, The Bush administration is utterly uninterested in the will of the Iraqi people on this subject. And the Iraqi people know it. "Asked what they think the US would do if the new government were to ask the US to withdraw its forces within six months, 76% overall assume that the US would refuse to do so," found a recent poll. And they're utterly correct. The reason the Iraqis view us as occupiers is because we are occupiers. --Ezra Klein
