I have my Marxist reasons (which include the impact of the invasion and occupation on Iraqis but also take its impacts on domestic US politics, on US foreign policy beyond Iraq, etc. into account) to call for withdrawal of US troops. Most Iraqis, probably not being any kind of leftist, don't have the same reasons as I do, excepting concerns about how the invasion and occupation affects them. And yet, a majority of them, as well as many Americans, are now voicing the necessity of US withdrawal from Iraq, so clearly that even polls register their thoughts. It's not that they suddenly turned left politically. It's not even that they are just reacting against what Washington has actually done in Iraq. They have realized what Washington is incapable of doing.
If Kerry had been elected, he might have done what he said he would do: send more US troops to Iraq. (Democrats running this year ought to be glad that he wasn't elected.) That would have increased American targets for Iraqi insurgents, which might have conceivably diminished Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence (which appears to have radically increased this year, though it may be that the worst violence is being committed by foreign jihadists) by keeping Iraqis busy fighting Americans. Only in that sense Kerry could have made a difference in my view -- not the sort of difference that would endear the occupation to Iraqis.
The thing is that war -- especially counter-insurgency war, which Washington is fighting in Iraq and Khartoum is fighting in Sudan -- is hard and doesn't conform to a fantasy of poetic justice that many people have in their minds: "good soldiers" saving "good civilians" from "bad guys." When soldiers go to foreign countries or rebellious provinces in their own countries, they discover that "good civilians" look very much like "bad guys" and vice versa. No one is wearing a badge that says, "I'm the bad guy -- shoot me!" All locals become suspect in soldiers' eyes and treated as such, which inspires resentment and can add fuel to the existing conflict or start a new one.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>