The American Spectator

p> BROTHERLY HATE br> Re: Patrick O’Hannigan’s On Forecasting Fratricide in Iraq : /p> p>Fratricide in Iraq wasn’t inevitable. Shia and Sunni work together when it suits them and kill each other when it suits them. In Iraq, Sunni and Shia worked together after our invasion. Al Qaeda decided to ignite a civil war by attacking Shia civilians. The Shia waited patiently for about a year for the U.S. to stop the Sunni massacres of Shia, but instead of killing the Sunni murderers, Bremer negotiated with them behind the scenes, trying to woo them into the government while calling them nasty names in the press. Finally, the Shia had had enough and decided to retaliate. Paul Bremer deserves all of the credit for the mess and mass murder in Iraq today. br> — Roger D. McKinney br> Broken Arrow, Oklahoma /p>

If O’Hannigan can point to his having published an article prior to the Iraq invasion that predicted deliberate Muslim fratricide, I’ll take his criticisms of the Administration more seriously. As it is, they simply seem to form another example of 20-20 hindsight.

He questions “…whether people in the president’s inner circle learned lessons from…the etymology of the word ‘assassin’”? OK, it comes from hashish — but what point is that supposed to make?

Dubya can be effectively criticized for being too “nice’ to Islam; for failing to hit Syria and Iran; for not firing General Zinni on January 21, 2001; and probably for many other things. I don’t see how he can be criticized for failing to use the Palantir to foresee Muslims killing Muslims in order to embarrass the USofA.

p>In fact, on re-reading O’Hannigan’s effort, the whole article fails to hang together, and looks like a patch job of multiple rants pasted up for AmSpec.