In an article entitled
"Iraqis Cite Shift in Attitudes Since Vote; Mood Seen Moving Against Insurgency," the Washington Post reports today that "a relative lull in violence in the capital has fueled the sense that something has fundamentally changed since the vote."
The "fundamental change": "[T]he public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said."
The evidence is largely anecdotal, and it is very early to draw conclusions about the state of the Iraqi conflict, but it isn't too early to start considering the effects of the Iraqi elections on that nation. Was the Iraqi election, in fact, a watershed event marking a "fundamental" and positive sea change in Iraq?
More below.
No one is stupid enough to say that the conflict is over:
None of the officials said they believed the violence was over. An attack Sunday on a police station in Mahawil, 50 miles south of Baghdad, left 22 policemen and National Guardsmen and 14 attackers dead, the Associated Press reported. The incident was a bloody end to a day in which at least nine other Iraqis were reported slain, and a U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded north of the capital. Four Egyptian engineers were kidnapped and two insurgent groups issued statements threatening to kill an Italian journalist who was taken hostage on Friday.
However, the article cites evidence -- albeit largely anecdotal -- of a change in the country's political mood.
With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said.
In the week since national elections, police officers and Iraqi National Guardsmen said they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country.
...
A change of attitudes in Baghdad could make a crucial difference in the battle against the insurgency, and a buoyed sense of civic pride is already beginning to change the way the public treats the police, authorities say.
"They saw what we did for them in the election by providing safety, and now they understand this is their army and their sons," said Sgt. Haider Abudl Heidi, a National Guardsman wearing a flak jacket at a checkpoint in Baghdad.
Reports from Iraqis reflected a similar shift in attitudes in large areas of the north and south, although authorities acknowledged that in some parts of the country, people remain hostile to the emerging Iraqi authority and supportive, to varying degrees, of the insurgents.
And they've got a martyr around whom to rally.
Part of that mood change is credited to Abdul Amir, Iraq's newest national hero. On election day, Amir, 30, a policeman in Baghdad, noticed a man walking toward a polling station who appeared to be carrying something heavy under his coat. Amir wrapped his arms around the man and dragged him away from the crowd. A belt of explosives wrapped around the man blew both men to shreds.
Members of Iraq's interim cabinet have touted Amir as a symbol of national pride. Newspapers have been filled with stories about him. A statue is being planned, and the elementary school that served as the polling station where he died may change its name to honor him.
So what is going on over there? Has the Post bought into administration propaganda? Was the Post spoon-fed the stories of Iraqis vetted by American authorities? Or did the elections really incite a fundamental shift in public opinion in Iraq?
I suspect the truth is somewhere between the two. The insurgents are still there; I doubt the elections made very many of them into pro-occupation democracy converts. At the same time, it is natural and unsurprising that an event of indisputable historical significance buoys national pride, at least on a temporary basis.
The question is whether the shift in mood described in the article is of sufficient weight and momentum to carry forward beyond the inevitable next wave of insurgent attacks. It's too early to know answer to that, but it is one of the questions whose answer will define the legacy of the Iraqi war.