As it begins to sink in that we're facing an enemy that has more in common with the Nazis than with the Taliban, more WWII reporting, this from Autumn 1941, and Howard K. Smith:

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean only that the German people are afraid of the Gestapo and that all they are waiting for is for someone to weaken the Gestapo, and then they will revolt. Though the Gestapo is certainly a big element in the fear complex, it is not the biggest. The main reason Germans cling to the lion's tail is that they are terrorized by the nightmare of what will happen to them if they fail to win the war, of what their long-suffering enemies will do to them....The German people are not convinced Nazis, not five percent of the; they are a people frightened stiff at what fate will befall them if they do not win the mess the Nazis have got them into.

Here, there is reason for hope for us. Because is becomes increasingly clear to our troops and reporters on the ground that the biggest fear for normal Iraqis is the Baathists. If Jed Babbin is right, and we're facing a boiling pot of terrorist intervention throughout the country, I suspect most Iraqis will turn on them, too. If we bring them freedom, they surely have no desire to descend back into the Saddamite pit, nor to turn themselves into the West Bank. I think this does argue for asking, as Mr. Chalabi suggests, the Iraqi people to take a larger part in their own liberation. They'll be that much less likely to give it back if they've helped fight for it themselves.