HOW DO THE IRAQIS FEEL?

It’s too hard to tell. It seems to me that we may have under-estimated the psychological effect of president George H. W. Bush’s brutal betrayal of the Iraqi people in 1991, at the behest of the U.N. No wonder Iraqis are still skittish about Americans and fearful that this interlude may end. The allied strategy of simply skirting past major cities also means that Saddam’s henchmen may still be in control there, and so feelings are still deeply skeptical, mixed or shrouded. I also think that we hawks might have under-estimated the Iraqis’ sense of national violation at being invaded – despite their hatred of Saddam. That’s what this piece suggests and what Salam Pax reveals. And yet we also have evidence of their obvious joy at the possibility of ending the long nightmare of Saddam. We simply don’t know for sure, and the mood may vary dramatically from area to area. In fact, we may not know at all until Saddam is finally gone. Like so many other things in this conflict, we’ll see.