One question that comes up when considering whether it's plausible that religious groups like Al Qaeda and secularists like the Ba'ath would cooperate. People who deny the possibility on first principle have clearly failed to look at history at all. We can always go to Germany where the Nazis and Communists cooperated to bring down the Weimar Republic. Once the Nazis gained ascendancy, they shot as many Communists as they could get their hands on. Iran is an even better example. The secual Communists cooperated in bringing down the Shah and were persecuted afterwards for their troubles. We can look at other nations like Nicaragua or Cuba where more democratic forces joined with the Communists to overthrow a government and suffered greatly afterwards.

Now, it's not a surpise to any of these groups (except perhaps the democratic forces) that this would happen after the revolution. The only surprising part is who, exactly, ends up against the wall. All of the groups plan on it being the other groups who are disposed of. I have no problem believing that the Ba'ath and Al Qaeda would form a common Caliphascist axis, cooperating while planning the swift and painful demise of the other as soon as they had smashed the current world power (the USA).

In fact,the religious factions of the Caliphascists may not consider the fall of Iraq to be all that much of a loss. It got rid of Saddam Hussein for them and if it ends up bogging down the US then that's all to the good. The bad outcome for the Caliphascists is a well ordered, properous Iraq. Leaving Saddam Hussein to the Coalition while preparing for guerilla war afterwards may well be their best strategy.