Who will they blame this time? I have just finished watching the scenes of the bloody demonstrations in Iraq on Al-Jazeera, and could not help but wonder about US propaganda techniques for the next few days, next few weeks, next few months. I have always believed that when rage sweeps the Shi`ite community in Iraq you may begin the countdown for the end of the US colonial adventure in Iraq. That time may have come already. Iraqi Shi`ites, and Muqtada As-Sadr cannot be linked to Abu Mus`ab Az-Zaraqawi or Bin Laden, and they are the most bitter enemies of the Ba`th party, and has been allegedly responsible for the assassination of scores of Ba`thists in the South of Iraq. They may be linked to an Iranian conspiracy, although Muqtada as-Sadr himself criticized Iran last year, and warned against its intervention in Iraqi affairs. Muqtada As-Sadr may have signaled the beginning of a new era when he identified with Hizbullah and Hamas in last Friday's sermon. Today's street scenes reminded me of Beirut on the eve of the civil war, or of Iran in the last days of the Shah. Will the US press (and public) react with revulsion to the news of shooting of demonstrators? Or will they simply and conveniently convince themselves that only terrorists would dare to oppose US colonial will? If Ayatollah As-Sistani feels the pressure from Shi`ite masses, he may offer that one fatwa--only a few sentences long, that would read as the obiturary of the American version of Iraq.