My own post on Gingrich's piece makes clear I agree. However, regarding this statement: "Making Iraqis more prominent in the occupation is a great way to demonstrate this."

I'd suggest that the very phrasing here is something that might warrant rephrasing. By definition, very few people want to be appointed to higher profile posts in an "occupation" of their country. We have to actually genuinely get a sovereign Iraqi government in power ASAP, however shakey and flawed, and move into aid-and-assistance-and-support mode, and out of "occupation" mode ASAP.

We don't have the authority of a God-Emperor commanding the people to obey, however grudgingly, the occupation here. We don't have a situation of having utterly destroyed a country which is left with no fighting-age men and has no alternative but obeying, however resentfully, their occupiers.

There's really no way to win many hearts and minds as an occupier. It's only by ceasing to be in the hated role of occupier that we can really win hearts and minds, if at all.

Every day of occupation is going to bring more humiliation of Iraqis and more killings on both sides and more hatred and despair. We can neither make people love us nor make people support us. We can only try to create the conditions for them to appreciate, like, and respect, our help, and we're never going to be 100% successful at that, of course. If we can get %52, we'll be damn lucky, but we can only do that, I'm convinced, if they see us moving out of being "occupiers" ASAP. Really ASAP.

I hope they'll then let us help them. But if they don't, we'll have done what we could, and I don't think there's much more to be done. We're not going to win by killing them, no even killing "the bad guys" (who I agree are plenty bad; that's not the point).

I expect you know from experience reading me that I'm scarcely a pacificist, nor am I saying this because I opposed the invasion, as I did not.

Every day of occupation is going to bring more humiliation of Iraqis and more killings on both sides and more hatred and despair. We can neither make people love us nor make people support us. We can only try to create the conditions for them to appreciate, like, and respect, our help, and we're never going to be 100% successful at that, of course. If we can get %52, we'll be damn lucky, but we can only do that, I'm convinced, if they see us moving out of being "occupiers" ASAP. Really ASAP.

I hope they'll then let us help them. But if they don't, we'll have done what we could, and I don't think there's much more to be done. We're not going to win by killing them, no even killing "the bad guys" (who I agree are plenty bad; that's not the point).

I understand this perspective, but think it's more appropriate to look at things from the perspective of "social legitimacy," or "the right to rule." According to an almost universally accepted theory by the sociologist Max Weber legitimacy of authority can derive from three sources: tradition, legal/rational precepts or "charisma." For most new governments, who have not yet established legal/rational procedures, and who may not have established much tradition either, legitimacy derives largely from charisma. In the case of the US the legitimacy of the early government was vested almost entirely in the person of George Washington. (One can see this fairly clearly by looking at news documents of the time.) And at the end of his period as "ruler" (president) Washington had enough authority to simply override the election requirements if he'd wanted to. However, he was a good republican and chose instead not only to leave office, but to leave office in such a way that his own charismatic authority was vested in the new legal/rational institutions of the fledgling government.

One wonders from whence legitimacy for a new Iraqi repaid will derive. But I suggest that it can't derive entirely from association with Iraqi tradition, because that's rather thin. And the UN, which is the only legal/rational authority that could vest legitimacy of that sort in a new government, does not yet have such sweeping legal/rational authority itself. Indeed, it has almost no legal/rational authority except in certain rarified circumstances where members of the Security Council tend to see things in the same terms. And China's overt policy is to preserve it's own sovereignty of authority (a policy which is more or less covert for the other members of the SC, but no less real). So that leave charisma.

And there is no charismatic individual in Iraq who has the stature of a Washington, or a Kemal Ataturk. But I submit that the United States, itself, has acquired a certain amount of charismatic legitimacy. It is of a sort that sociologists are unfamiliar with, because it's the charisma of an entire society or culture rather than an individual. But I submit that it is nonetheless real, and that it can provide transitional legitimacy for a new Iraqi government under the right circumstances. In fact, it is virtually the only hope that exists for an Iraqi Democracy.

And if we look at things in those terms, the example of Washington in instructive. Because he left office as a result of procedures established under the legal/rational authority of the new governments, which was the mechanism that allowed the transfer of legitimacy from his person, to the new institutions. So I submit that we employ the same strategy here, and that once sovereignty in invested in the new Iraqi government and its constitution that government then has the role of defining, at least to some extent, the length and role of the US presence in Iraq. And the more we are seen to adhere to those procedures, established by the new government, the more of our charismatic authority will be transferred to the new institutions. This is precisely what happened in Japan and Germany.

But it's important to remember that charismatic authority is fleeting, and it has to be both cultivated and managed. I don't, therefore, disagree with what you're saying so much as I think we need to be more cognizant of our role in Iraq, and it is not entirely as "hated occupiers." And I also submit that even if there is a certain amount of hatred toward the US that also may be steeped in charisma. And such hatred can be transmuted into something a great deal more benign during the process of peaceful transition of authority. It is not so much that we be seen as "good guys" but that we be seen as bound by the precepts that simultaneously define our role, and the role of the new Iraqi authority. And I'd also like to point out that the whole concept of charisma implies miracles or extraordinary events, so there is room for us to be both practical and inspired.

Quick reply: some interesting suggestions and thoughts, Scott.

One wonders from whence legitimacy for a new Iraqi repaid will derive.

Damn illegible spell checker! Should have been "Iraqi republic," not "Iraqi repaid." Sheesh.