US imperialists clearly underestimated the capacity for resistance, and willingness to resist, on the part of Iraqis and other Muslims, and in this they are similar to imperialists of the past, European, Japanese, and Soviet among others, who all made similar errors at one time or another. US imperialists ignored the counsel of French statesmen, who were speaking from experience:
. . . Mr. Sarkozy has long defended France's decision
to stay out of the war, citing the bitter lessons of his
country's tortured history in Algeria and Vietnam.
"We were kicked out of Algeria less than 50 years ago,
so don't tell us that we don't remember and that we don't
understand," Mr. Sarkozy told an audience at Columbia
University in 2004 in explaining France's decision to stay
out of the Iraq war. "We lived what you are living through
in America before you. We were in Vietnam before you,
and our young people died in Vietnam."
He added: "In France, history is something that counts.
Please don't be angry with us because we remember
what happened to us. Is there even a single country of
the world, at any time of history, that was able to
maintain itself in a sustained way in a country that was
not its own, uniquely by the force of arms? Never,
not a single one, even the Chinese."
That analysis of the Iraq war sounds remarkably similar
to the one articulated repeatedly by Mr. Chirac both
publicly and during private meetings with Mr. Bush.
"In Algeria, we began with a sizable army and huge
resources, and the fighters for independence were
only a handful of people, but they won," Mr. Chirac
said in an interview in September 2003. "That's how it is."
(Elaine Sciolino, "An Admirer of America Sets a
New Course for France," 8 May 2007, <http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60911F83D550C7B8CDDAC0894DF404482>)
In France, even pro-Washington rightists like Nicolas Sarkozy knew that the chances were the Iraqis would resist the invaders. Not so here in the USA, where not only rightists but also most liberals and leftists failed to see that.
The reason is that most American liberals and leftists do not understand other peoples' patriotism, especially their sense of honor.
They find it inexplicable that anyone wants to risk their life for the purpose of defending their country from imperialists. To them, it is not a worthy cause to seek to liberate a country from imperialism, for imperialism has been materially good to them, so they mistakenly believe that it is not a worthy cause either in the eye of the Iraqi people and others in similar circumstances.
Moreover, they could always find enough Iraqi collaborators -- including a few "Iraqi leftists" here and there, such as the execrable Iraqi Communist Party -- who would tell them what they wanted to hear, so they could continue believing that hatred of the occupation was confined to regime dead-enders, Al Qaeda, and the like, and that the Iraqis really needed US troops to protect them from terrorists and help them reconstruct their country, even long after it became clear that was not really the case. -- Yoshie