link. I especially liked this:

People call the Shia US allies, even Cole does this, and they are no such thing. They are waiting like a cheetah to pounce. They aren't fighting us, yet, but they are not our friends. If they were, they would be helping the occupation and they are decidedly not. Guerrilla cells work freely in Shia towns and neighborhoods. If they didn't, there would be a greal deal of tension when they did their missions. Or they would be exposed. And that isn't happening.

As a study he sites, the resistance is cross-ethnic, including everyone from Kurds to Christians. So to depict it as a Sunni-only problem is wrong.

It also amuses me that the news is now shocked that Mosul is a hotbed of Iraqi resistance. They've never accepted the occupation there, considering that it's the home of Arab culture in Northern Iraq. There have been steady attacks on Americans since the early days of the occupation. They were just ignored. Now, they can't be. Even the Peshmerga avoided fighting the Iraqi Army to any large degree. So this myth that reistance was localized to the Sunni area near Baghdad was just that.

In fact, the two most deadly attacks, the bombing of the Italians in Nasyriah and the al-Hakim assassination in Najaf, happened in the Shia-controlled south. Neither one could have occured without Shia cooperation on some level.

Imaigining that Chalabi could be appointed strongman in this environment is insane on it's face, but hardly surprising.