Talking Points Memo and dailyKOS both have comments on something that many warned about, but that the administration ignored — what if the Iraqi majority voted in an Islamic government?

US "surprised" by Shiite opposition

Ahh, the forces of Democracy and freedom continue to consolidate their gains in Iraq. Well, except that the nation's largest minority group is agitating for an early US withdrawl and the establishment of an Iran-friendly repressive Islamic state.

And somehow, this has "surprised" US planners.

As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq's future mount, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites' organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country.

The burst of Shiite power -- as demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands who made a long-banned pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala yesterday -- has U.S. officials looking for allies in the struggle to fill the power vacuum left by the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

Whether you were for or against the war, the treatment the intelligence agencies received at the hands of the Bush Adminsitration has been shameless, and as a result we are unprepared to deal with the reality on the ground.

When planning an operation of this sort, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. In this case, the admin prepared for the best and assumed the best.
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The newsflash of the day is the surprising strength of clerically-based Shi'a groups in Iraq. Perhaps 'surprising' should be placed in edgy quotation marks, since the articles and columns appearing in today's papers are based on the comments of those who aren't surprised at all -- namely folks at State, CIA, the broader intelligence community, and region experts generally. The argument behind these critiques is not that the problem is insurmountable but that the planners of the war seem to have given the issue so little attention.
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