“When the United States invaded Iraq a year ago, one of its chief concerns was preventing a civil war between Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority in the country, and Sunni Muslims, who held all the power under Saddam Hussein.

Now the fear is that the growing uprising against the occupation is forging a new and previously unheard of level of cooperation between the two groups — and the common cause is killing Americans.” — New York Times

You have got to hand it to the Bush administration’s prowess at nation-building. I would never have believed it would have happened in Iraq if I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes. Fitting that this is happening on the year’s anniversary of the famous toppling of the Saddam statue. The lesson to be taken from this is not that the tide has turned against us in the ensuing year, but that it was never with us in the first place. Recall that the jubilation at the toppling of the statue was a sham, a photo-op staged for the occasion with a few carefully assembled cheering Iraqi dupes. It is only a pity that it has taken so long, and so many thousands of Iraqi lives, for the Iraqis to unite in effective opposition against the ‘coalition’ invaders.

Related: Experts Concerned:

Milt Bearden, who retired after 30 years with the CIA’s directorate of operations, notes that in the last 100 years any insurgency that has taken on a nationalist character — for instance, a shared goal of getting rid of Americans — has succeeded.

Other former intelligence officials familiar with the region caution that outside Shiite groups, acting more covertly than the Sadr militia, could prove to be formidable problems.

Bob Baer, a former CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East, said he met with Islamic fighters in Lebanon just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq who told him they were preparing to fight a long-term war with the West in Iraq. They included members of Hezbollah and Hamas, he said. —SF Chronicle