As the weeks of violence turned into months, frustration turned to bitterness and resentment at what was perceived by many Iraqis as "malicious inattention or inattentive malice" on the part of the US. Memories of the Reagan administration's support for Saddam's government during the Iran-Iraq war resurfaced, as well as grievances over the US-supported sanctions that took such a toll on the civilians. "God Curse Saddam and the Americans" became a popular graffiti. One man Shadid interviewed even asserted that Saddam had been in cahoots with the Americans, giving them a pretext to occupy Iraq.
As the months passed and Shadid continued his travels through the volatile streets of Baghdad and the even more volatile streets of smaller towns and villages, he witnessed the seeds of the insurgency blossom and take root. Given the power vacuum created by the fall of a government that had held sway for decades and the US decision to dissolve the Iraqi army, vociferous religious leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr stepped forward, and disparate groups (including former supporters of Saddam, Iraqi nationalists, radical Islamists and foreign agitators) started to come together under the banner of resistance.
"Rather than Iraq changing the Arab world" as American leaders had hoped, Shadid writes, "the Arab world, with its complement of impressions, prejudices,
aspirations, and resentments, began changing Iraq. As time passed, towns in the Sunni regions began to feel more and more recognizable to reporters like me who had spent years in Arab places."
Shadid sees the elections in January as a sign of hope. But he points out that after those elections, the "forces of religious revival, growing militancy, and hardening sectarianism, underlined by grievance and a threat of even more strife, returned to the stage."
He reports that Iraqi police and security forces are often denounced as collaborators or traitors, that Iraqi society is growing increasingly atomized.
For ordinary Iraqis, who lived through the repressive regime of Saddam, the harrowing losses of the Iran-Iraq war, the ravages of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and the hardships of international sanctions, the invasion by America and the continuing insurgency represent yet another chapter in what seems like a Sisyphean litany of suffering.
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