The bomb attack has enraged the majority Shia population, who regard the shrine in the same way that Roman Catholics view St Peter's in Rome. ... "Iraq is in a Weimar period like Germany in the 1920s which will either end with the country disintegrating or in an authoritarian government taking power," said Ghassan Atiyyah, an Iraqi political commentator. ... The destruction of the Golden Mosque will be an immense psychological blow to Iraqi Shia who have endured so much down the centuries. The shrine contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams, Ali al-Hadi who died AD868 and his son Hassan Ali al-Askari who died AD874. His son, the last of the 12 Shia imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared and is known as the "hidden imam". Shias believe he is still alive and will bring justice to humanity. ... There are signs of increasing anti-American feeling among the Shia as they see the Americans allying themselves with the Sunni. ... The extent of Shia retaliation may also depend on the Iranian government... Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the intelligence services of the US and Israel for being behind the bombs in Samarra.

for what's called nation building.

Iraq Spirals Toward Civil Conflict

I don't think there is any shock that one side did it to the other side.

The question now is managing the results in such a way democracy is the result.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Link

and

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

Paul Wolfowitz May 28, 2003

Link

From a Conservative analysis of the 2003 SOTU:

Iraq presently -- not potentially -- poses a viable nuclear threat to the national security of the United States. Saddam Hussein is a clear and present danger. This is precisely the threat that The Federalist has concluded, since last July, was at the center the President's "regime change" doctrine. End of story.

Link

So the storyline wasn't about Saddam 'murdering thousands of Iraqis' it was about how we couldn't wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

Google results for "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".

PPJ, you'll have to go to the Maine Shack and tell this whoever Chief there that his suggestion about using a few cups of joe as passed through your kidneys and suggesting a sudden change in the weather didn't work this time.

The trick is knowing when to turn.

David Corn pointed out the futility of such optimism and blind refusal to recognize the facts in the case:

But expressing skepticism about importing democracy to Iraq (or imposing it)--where there are deep-seated religious and territorial divisions--is not the same as diminishing the capacity of the inhabitants of an entire region. It's called being reality-based. What is transpiring in Iraq was predicted before the invasion by various experts on Iraq. Yet the Bush White House refused to consider the possibility of civil war or to draw up plans for dealing with it (even if such plans might have proved worthless).