Two years on

Today is the second anniversary of the end of the Saddam Hussein regime. There's an interesting report in the Financial Times:

On the second anniversary of the "Fall", as Iraqis term April 9, many express neither the wild optimism they felt in the first weeks after the war, nor the deep pessimism of a year later, when it seemed the country was falling into chaos.

A more common response now is ambivalence - satisfaction that the January 30 elections produced a semblance of democratic government, but weariness of bombs in the street, crime, and power failures.
.....
The most recently published opinion poll, conducted by the International Republican Institute in February and March, suggests that many Iraqis believe the worst is over. Only 37 per cent of respondents said that they were worse off now than before the war, and nearly 90 per cent thought things would slowly improve.

However, opinions vary strongly according to region, religion and ethnicity.

Due to security reasons, the poll was not carried out in the predominantly Sunni governorates of Anbar and Ninawah, where residents say that over the past two years their cities have been bombed, their homes invaded by troops and their family members subjected to mass arrest.

Kurds in the northern city of Sulimaniya, on the other hand, today display pictures of US President George W. Bush in shop windows, and thank him for ensuring that Mr Hussein's army would never return to massacre their people.

Iraq's Shia, who are estimated to make up 60 per cent of the population and who now dominate parliament and cabinet, are more divided.

Read the whole thing.