Hundreds of pages have been ripped from the calendar since Iraqis showed the kind of unity and happiness that flowed across the land on Sunday — however brief it may prove.

And it would have been seen as a foolhardy exercise to predict a football (soccer) team — the determined Lions of the Two Rivers — would unleash a flood of joy held back for decades by the dam of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and four-plus years of war since America invaded to topple him.

The team’s victory in the prestigious 2007 Asian Cup dripped with the symbolism of the makeup of its front-line strikers: one Kurd, one Shiite, one Sunni.

Police roadblocks had been stiffened. A security crackdown was in full force.

Curfews banned vehicles in Baghdad and other cities. Decrees forbade the penchant in this part of the world to grab your AK-47 and rip off a few celebratory rounds.

But gunfire roared across Baghdad at the second-half goal against Saudi Arabia in pursuit of a soccer cup the Iraqi team had never won.

It was deafening when the underdog Lions sealed the 1-0 victory in Jakarta, Indonesia.

State television said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was on the phone in seconds talking to the victors. The dour, hard-line Shiite leader announced only minutes into the the game that each team member had been awarded $10,000.

And the leader’s office quickly cranked out a note of congratulations:

"There is a big difference between The Lions of the Two Rivers who struggle to put a smile on the faces of their people and those who work in dark corners strewing death and sorrow in the paths of innocent people. We are proud of you. Your deserve all our love and respect."

The U.S. military command in Iraq e-mailed its own message shortly afterward.

"Throughout this demanding competition, you represented Iraq with distinction and honor, inspiring all Iraqis by your unity, teamwork, dedication and athletic ability. We salute you and congratulate you on this tremendous achievement."

The people of Iraq seemed far ahead of their leaders in letting sectarian bygones be bygone and allowing ethnic atrocities to fade.

In Shiite-dominated Basra, Iraq’s second city in the deep south, some young men stripped to the waist to show chests painted with the colors of the Iraqi flag. Others painted their faces. Some wore monkey masks and wigs.

North of the capital in Tikrit, just up the road from Saddam’s hometown and Sunni power base, cars toured the city, horns honking, Iraqi flags poked out of the windows.

In Sulaimaniyah, the Kurdish city in the north, Amir Mohammed, a Shiite Arab visiting from the south, walked through the streets arm-in-arm with his Kurdish friend Shaman Aziz.

"We agreed that if the Iraqi team won, I would carry the Iraqi flag while my Arab friend would walk with the Kurdish flag in order to show that there is no difference among Iraqis. We belong to one country. The football team has shown that we are united from the south to the north," Aziz said.

Happiness, too, in southeastern Baghdad’s mainly Shiite Amin neighborhood:

Tariq Yassin, a 24-year-old Shiite in the district, declared himself a shy man who forgot himself and danced in the streets, marveling the "These athletes united us again."

Two hundred miles south of the capital, Mahmoud Hassan, joined merrymakers in the streets of Nasiriyah. "I can’t express my joy. It’s the best day of my life. We want to forget all our sorrow and begin life anew in our beloved Iraq."

But even in victory and paroxysms of joy, tragedy struck, danger loomed.

In just one Baghdad neighborhood, four people died of celebratory gunshot wounds. Scores were wounded nationwide and the reports continued seeping in from across the nation.

Brig. Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman, told The Associated Press that Iraqi police narrowly averted a suicide car bomb attack as the driver was killed speeing toward a celebrating crowd southwestern Baghdad.

Dozens died last week when bombers hit fans and patriots jamming the streets after the Iraqi team’s quarterfinal and semifinal wins.

With parliamentarians at sectarian loggerheads and political and religious-driven violence still raging, huge strides await politicians in matching the unity that sprang from Iraqis Sunday. Rich and poor, Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds, they swarmed out of Baghdad’s swank villas and adobe hovels unified, if briefly, by a sports team.

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