by Abigail A. Fuller and Neil Wollman

        Give us three minutes and we can find an op-ed piece in a U.S. newspaper calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, or arguing that they should stay. The arguments are varied and numerous: If the U.S. leaves, anarchy will ensue. Occupation forces are a target for foreign terrorists. Bush should set a timetable for withdrawal. Setting a timetable would embolden those using violence in Iraq. And so on. What is missing from this picture? Any discussion of what the Iraqi people themselves want. The opinions of those most affected by this war count the most. And so a nationwide referendum should be conducted in Iraq on the question of whether U.S. troops should stay or go, in which every Iraqi can vote directly on this question.

        What the U.S. public wants is much discussed in the media­nearly every week poll results are announced indicating how many people believe the United States should withdraw all or some troops from Iraq (63 percent, according to the latest USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll) and how many believe the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq (59 percent, from the same poll). As U.S. citizens we certainly have an interest in whether the troops stay. Our tax money funds the U.S. military presence, and our young men and women are being killed and injured there. So our opinions matter.

        But what about the Iraqis? There are inherent difficulties in polling in an unstable, war-torn environment. Furthermore, most polls of Iraqi public opinion ask such ambiguous questions as, "Do you think the country is headed in the right direction?"­to which a "yes" answer could mean any number of things, from a belief that the insurgents are defeating the occupation forces and that's a good thing, to a belief that a democratic government will be established soon in part due to the U.S. presence. Neither is it sufficient to simply allow the Iraqi government to determine whether or not U.S. troops stay: 37 percent of Iraqis, a significant minority, feel that the Iraqi National Assembly does not serve the interests of all Iraqis (International Republican Institute poll, July 2005).

        Some polls have asked Iraqis specifically about the presence of U.S. troops, and guess what: they want us to leave. A February poll by the U.S. military, cited by the Brookings Institution, found that 71 percent of Iraqis "oppose the presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq." This poll was taken only in urban areas, but others have found much the same sentiment. According to a January 2005 poll by Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International, 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiite Arabs favor the withdrawal of U.S. troops either immediately or after an elected government is in place.

        But an opinion poll does not carry the weight of a referendum, in which all Iraqis could clearly and definitively vote on whether or not U.S. troops should remain in their country. This can be done: Kurdish activists organized a referendum on independence during the January national elections in Iraq, which found that over 90 percent of Kurd voters want independence for the region. On October 15 Iraqis will vote, in another referendum, on whether to accept a new constitution.

        It appears that we as a nation are so self-absorbed that both the hawks and the doves among us have forgotten to ask what those most affected by the war­the Iraqi people themselves--want. Let us remedy this situation by supporting a referendum and then abiding by the results. Let the Iraqi people decide.

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Abigail A. Fuller is associate professor of sociology and social work at Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana. Neil Wollman is professor of psychology and senior fellow of the Peace Studies Institute at Manchester College, North Manchester, IN 46962; aafuller@manchester.edu, njwollman@manchester.edu; 260-982-5009/5346.

         The foreign policies of a country can not be based on popularity contest, because "the man on the street" always looks for easy way out and seldom weighs the consequences of what he is asking for. An important factor related to whether the US should stay or leave, which seems to be ignored, is the consequences of the premature US departure if Iraqis are not yet able to defend themselves. There is this naive assumption that there will be peace and everyone will live happily ever after. A little logic proves otherwise.

         Most terrorists in Iraq are Suni who resent having the political and the economic power taken away from them and given to the Sheites and Kurds. The rest are foreign Islamic extremists who truly believe they will be rewarded with a better life in paradise if they blow themselves up and kill as many Americans, Sheites and Kurds in the process.

         They also find Iraq a good place to punish the US for all the real and imagined harms it may have done to their Arab brethren. They want also to help their Suni brothers against the Sheites and the none Arab Kurds. This means as soon as the Americans leave, prematurely, there will be a bloody civil war between the three factions each supported by one or more neighboring countries. How many hundreds of thousands Iraqi will die before the situation is settled no one can tell, but the civil war will be inevitable. The Iraqis and the Americans who respond to the poll or referendum don't seem to be thinking of such outcome. 

         The calls for the US withdrawal from Iraq is mostly motivated by avoiding further deaths of the Americans soldiers, but, there is no guarantee that fewer Americans will die if the enemy remains undefeated. The US withdrawal will be interpreted by the terrorists and supporters in the Moslem world as the defeat of a superpower giant with the help of Allah. It will prove once more that victory does not depend on the numbers of the planes or tanks a nation has but on how strong its desire is to defeat the enemy . Excited by such victory there is good possibility that the insurgents would want to take their terrorism to the cities of the US to further embarrass, weaken its resolve, and deminish its international standing. It would also convince them that they can drive the US out of the Middle East if they continue their terrorism against its cities.

         While the death of over two thousands American young men and women is heart breaking, leaving the terrorist in charge of Iraq may in the long run cause the death of thousands of Americans in the US and around the world. Just one major attack on the World Trade Center caused the death of 3000 in a matter of few hours, by some estimate the incident cost the US about 200 billion dollars in damage. Imagine if such attacks are repeated several times.

Israel's withdrawal form part of the occupied territories intended to please the Palestinians did not stop the latest attack against its citizens. It is a fact that part of the terrorist attacks in Iraq are driven by Al Quaida who blew up the the World Trade Center towers long before the US involvement in the Iraqi war, therefore the assumption that such attacks will stop if the US withdraws from Iraq is unrealistic. 

         There is a possibility that the Islamic militants once freed from their war with the US will find it easier to direct their attacks against the oil rich Arab countries who are presently at peace with the US to either overthrow their government, replace them with anti US rulers, or to convince the present rulers that they would be better off appeasing the terrorist by refusing to sell oil to the US.

          Such events can be anticipated based on past experiences, the known psychological make up and belief system of the terrorists. There is good reasons to believe that they will come true. The question is are Americans and the Iraqis, who call for the US withdrawal, willing to live with such consequences?

William Warda