A galvanizing force

Juan Cole, on one of the "accomplishments" of the war in Iraq:

The US envisaged its presence in Iraq as a grand nation-building exercise. How ironic that so many Iraqis are coming together with the goal of expelling the US. In the 19th century the Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II, and the reformer, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, launched the pan-Islamic project - the unity of Sunnis and Shia against European imperialism - but it always failed. The US hyperpower seems finally to be nudging the movement from a dream into political reality.

Someone tell the neocons. They surely won't be pleased to hear this.