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The problem is not Mr. Maliki’s narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is the logical product of the system the United States created, one that deliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately marginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority. It was all but sure to produce someone very like Mr. Maliki, a sectarian Shiite far more interested in settling scores than in reconciling all Iraqis to share power in a unified and peaceful democracy."All but sure" denotes a belief by the Times that Mr. Bush should have consulted a psychic prior to the invasion as the Times seems to have done prior to writing this editorial. On what reasonable, rational basis can anyone make the claim that it was "all but sure" that a sectarian partisan would have risen to the post of Prime Minister?