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Anyone out there surprised by this revelation?

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, [Peter] Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

Judging by the way he's handled the crisis in Lebanon, you might be able to convince me that he still doesn't understand the difference.

We have, as Galbraith maintains, handed the Iranians a great strategic triumph, one which required they do nothing more than sit back and watch. By first taking down Saddam and, second, replacing his rule with chaos, we've enabled the creation of a new radical Shi’ia crescent stretching from the mountains of Pakistan to the Mediterranean sea. Because of our actions, Iran's strategic position is stronger than ever.

It didn't have to be this way....