The allied victory in the war to disarm Iraq by removing its dictator is an extraordinary feat of arms, and the destruction of Saddam Hussein's statues in Baghdad now matches the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 in the iconography of freedom. But the achievement will only be worth the lives lost if a new form of government emerges that is based on the rule of law and the ballot box. The cynical exponents of a faux realpolitik are already beginning to explain why this cannot be done, just as they explained three weeks ago how the Iraqi military would stand and fight, and how the patriotic people of Baghdad would rally to defend Hussein's fascist dictatorship. They were proved wrong with great speed as the allied forces took three weeks to the day to win a spectacular victory. Proving the critics wrong by winning the peace will take longer. The challenges faced in the short term by the US and its allies, the United Nations, and, down the decades, by the people of Iraq are profound. Iraq has no experience of democracy, although it does have strong traditions in education, science and the arts. Its government has been gutted by a fascist regime which used the resources of the state to reward its supporters and punish opponents. Its oil wealth has been squandered for three decades on a dictator's whim. And the nation is divided on lines of faith and ethnicity. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims do not trust each other and only come together in their antipathy towards the Kurds' ambitions for a homeland. These are all problems which only the Iraqis can solve over time, through a stable and ultimately democratically sanctioned form of government.

In the immediate term the task for the allied armies is to establish the rule of law wherever their writ extends, to end the looting, and to prevent mob justice against the Baath party functionaries now nervously facing their victims. They must restore basic infrastructure and ensure food and medical aid, and they must begin to lay the foundations for a government of Iraq for and by the people. Having ducked the war, the Europeans, notably the French, now want to dictate the peace, and demand a driving role for the UN. Certainly, there must be a role for the UN, mainly in the administration of aid programs. But there is no case for the Security Council, the body which could not unite to confront Hussein, to be trusted with the task of designing a government to replace the dictatorship. The Americans and British spent the blood and treasure to win this necessary war and they must take on the responsibility to manage the peace. Australia has a similar obligation and the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday that we will provide staff for the transition administration, and a limited military presence, is appropriate.

But not for long. The war was fought to disarm and destroy a dictatorship, and from the beginning of the peace it must be made clear to the people of Iraq and the wider Muslim world that the allies will leave Iraq as soon as a legitimate and viable government can be established. There is no doubt that this is exactly what the US will do. As President George W. Bush put it earlier this week, "Iraqis are plenty capable of running Iraq". America's enemies may not like to hear it, but the US has no imperial tradition. After World War II it rebuilt the Japanese and German economies, helped establish democracy in both countries – and then went home.

"The thirst for freedom is unquenchable" is how White House spokesman Ari Fleischer summarised the scenes on the streets of Baghdad yesterday: like much of what the current US administration says, it is both corny, and utterly true. What the scenes in Baghdad and Basra confirm is that, once liberated from a reign of terror, people in Iraq, like people everywhere, will choose freedom over tyranny. While some Western intellectuals continue to insist that the "imposition" of democracy upon countries with different traditions is not "appropriate", this is a piece of moral relativism that appears to have escaped the dancing crowds in Baghdad.

It is the people of Iraq who are the first and most important beneficiaries of the allied actions of the past three weeks: after a transitional period, their fate will at last be in their own hands. But there are also significant gains for the people of the wider Middle East. The "explosion" of the Arab street that many predicted has not taken place: there has been some simmering resentment, but even this will be doused by the scenes of rejoicing Iraqis. Luckily, fears that other states in the region would interpret the allied campaign against Iraq as a "war on Islam" have proved, like so much else, delusions of Western intellectuals opposed to the campaign. Rather than producing violence, there is hope that the liberation of Iraq may produce a new impetus for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, by replacing a destabilising influence in the region with a democratic one. The next task for Mr Bush is to resume the "roadmap towards peace" he believes can end the Israel-Palestinian conflict within two years, and produce an independent Palestinian state. For this to happen, however, Israel's neighbours will need to put aside their half century's worth of resentment that Israel exists in the first place. At the same time, there must be a Palestinian ceasefire, and an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities.

There is no emerging evidence of the "hundreds of Osama bin Ladens" that we were warned the confronting of Hussein would spawn. Given the massive disincentive to sponsoring terrorism that Hussein's example will now constitute, the terrorists who are still out there must be starting to have a sense of the walls closing in. Along with Hussein and the Baath hierarchy, they are the big losers out of the past three weeks, along with all the other regimes that rule by terror and fear.

But also among the losers is the UN. How long would these scenes of rejoicing have been delayed if the UN, and those such as France who encouraged its folly, had had their way? How many torture victims were to be sacrificed on the altar of "international law"? As for those in the West who militated against this war, claiming it was illegal and immoral, that it would inflame hatred, and would end up simply replacing one tyranny with another: let them go and tell that to the people of Baghdad. Now they have turned to carping about "where are the WMDs?", as if soldiers who have just succeeded in a near-impossible military task are to be faulted for not having undertaken a systematic weapons inspection process as well.

This was a just war, and one that will make the world a better and safer place. The Prime Minister was not prepared to use what he called the "V" words yesterday, but we will use one of them: Australia's decision to join the campaign is vindicated.

A REGIME regarded by every sane person as the worst the Arabs have seen in contemporary history has collapsed with relatively few casualties and limited material damage.

The Baathist criminals who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including some by chemical weapons, over a quarter of a century, are either dead or will soon be captured and tried. For the first time since 1958 Iraq has a chance to dream of something other than bloody dictatorship.

Logically, Arabs should be jubilant. But some of the Western media tell us that they are not. Are Arabs masochists? The answer is no.

Arabs can be divided into three groups with regard to the war to liberate Iraq.

The first consists of Arab regimes, most of them despotic, who secretly wished to see the end of Saddam Hussein while praying that they would escape a similar fate.

The second consists of the Arab masses who, as yesterday's scenes of jubilation showed in Baghdad, are happy to see at least one of their oppressors kicked into the dustbin of history.

The so-called "Arab street" did not explode in countries outside Iraq, thus disappointing the don't-touch-Hussein lobby in the West. All in all, 17 demonstrations were held in four Arab countries. The largest, organised by the Syrian Government in Damascus, attracted just 12,000 people.

Then we have the long-distance heroes, corrupt and confused elites who, tortured by what is left of their numbed consciences, still hope that someone else's sacrifices will somehow redeem them. These are not Iraqis. They are people far from the scene of the conflict who urged the Iraqis to die in large numbers so that they could compose poems in their praise or pen incendiary columns inciting them to martyrdom. They dreamed of a second Vietnam or, failing that, at least a Stalingrad in Baghdad.

Much of the Arab media went hysterical about imaginary battles in which resisting Iraqis supposedly inflicted massive losses on "the invaders". They forecast a war that would last "for years", if not "until the end of time".

Al-Ahram, the Egyptian Government weekly, promised that "the heroic Iraqis, ready to fight to the last of their blood", would turn their country into "a vast graveyard for America's imperial dreams".

Many Arab newspapers imported their illusions from the West. Throughout the war, the Saudi, Egyptian and Lebanese press syndicated hundreds of articles from British and French anti-war newspapers. (The Saudi Arab News, for example, ran up to 10 articles from The Independent each day.)

The headlines screamed "Americans slaughter civilians" and "Thousands of Iraqis prepare for suicide missions". None of that happened. The Iraqis proved to be wiser than some of their Arab brethren had assumed.

The Iraqi army, which suffered from Hussein's savagery as much as other Iraqi institutions, decided not to fight from the start. Its units did not become involved in a single engagement, above company level, against the coalition forces.

Iraq's elite 4th Army Corps, based in the southeast, for example, evaporated. Had the Iraqi army and people wanted to fight, coalition tanks would not have reached the gates of Baghdad in two weeks.

The first Gulf War, for the liberation of Kuwait, lasted six weeks – including only 100 hours of ground fighting – and indicated the unwillingness of the Iraqi army to fight for the despot. (By comparison, the war to liberate Kosovo from Serbian terror lasted 11 weeks, and the war to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban took nine weeks.)

When it became clear that the army was intelligent enough not to fight in defence of its oppressor, the long-distance heroes began urging civilians to go and get killed in large numbers in the forlorn hope of keeping Hussein in power.

The fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden, or whoever pretends to be him, issued a statement calling on Iraqis to commit suicide, presumably so that he could have a chuckle in his grotto. The sheikh of al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, and Hussein Fadlallah, the Hezbollah spiritual chief in Lebanon, issued fatwas for jihad which they mistakenly take to mean holy war, and then went to bed, leaving the fight to Iraqi "candidates for martyrdom". The Iraqi people ignored them.

The Iraqis did not wish to suffer the fate of the Palestinians, that is to say, to die in large numbers for decades so that other Arabs, safe in their homes, would feel good about themselves. The Iraqis know that had the Palestinians not listened to their Arab brethren, they would have had a state in 1947, as decided by the UN Security Council. The Iraqis know that each time the Palestinians became heroic to please other Arabs they lost even more.

These days the Arab media is full of articles about how the Arabs feel humiliated by what has happened in Iraq, how they are frustrated, how they hate the US for having liberated the people of Iraq from their oppressor, and how they hope that the Europeans, presumably led by Jacques Chirac, will ride to the rescue to preserve a little bit of Hussein's legacy with the help of the UN.

Thank god the peoples of Iraq, not deceived by Arab hyperbole, are ignoring such nonsense.

Are the long-distance heroes humiliated? If they are, so what? They should jump in a river. Iraq is free and, despite its legitimate concerns about the future, cautiously happy.

Amir Taheri, an Iranian, is the author of The Cauldron – The Middle East Behind the Headlines. This article first appeared in British newspaper The Times.

In the center of this rural village near the border with Iran, an American colonel was talking with three sheiks.

"Would you like us to point out the bad people to you?" one of the sheiks asked.

"Yes, point them out and we'll take care of them," the colonel said, his arms pinned to his side by a crowd of men and boys curious to hear their liberator speak.

"Of course," the sheik said, "we can point them out to you, and then we can take care of them ourselves."

"No, just go about your business," the colonel said.

The marines took no prisoners here today, and there are probably few arrests to come. Though the Americans have promised to hunt down the Baath Party officials who have ruled here for 35 years and prosecute them, it is nearly impossible to do so.

After all, the local townsmen whisper, many families had Baath Party informants, and every neighborhood had a member of the party. The connection proved important for employment, promotions and the well-being of their children.

Moreover, the motives of those offering to help the American military are suspect.

"Do not trust the shieks," said Habib Hadi, a petroleum engineer who speaks English and was drinking tea at the market. "They want power. It is better to believe that the soldiers and party members have gone. How do Americans say — sleeping dogs?"

In this conservative Shiite Muslim village, folk wisdom says, allegiances flow in the order of Allah, family, village, clan and tribe. Relations are a complex stew. An enemy one day may be a friend the next. A rival becomes a brother-in-law. The settling of scores will be done by the men of this village, not the men of America or Britain.

According to the Moroccan journalist Anas Bouslamti, who has studied the Middle East for 15 years and was in Kumait today, a family could not eat without some connection to the government, and all but the most destitute households were tethered to it in some way.

"In times like these, when the power is collapsing, the people shift to the winning side," Mr. Bouslamti said. "When the power falls, the people say they had nothing to do with it. They saw nothing. They are innocents. The same thing happened with the Nazis, the Communists and the Taliban."

This evening, black plumes of smoke billowed from the center of the nearby city of Amara and loud explosions rumbled across the desert. The Americans had pulled back to base camps or were bivouacked on the outskirts of the city on the Tigris. The war for internal power is on.

The United States military is not policing the local streets, fearing that it would appear to be an occupying force.

"Our main function here is to wrest control of the country from Saddam," said Brig. Gen. Rich Natonski, commanding officer of Task Force Tawara. "Once we accomplish that, then the work of rebuilding this country can begin."

In the meantime a picture is starting to emerge of life in the Hussein era. The local men say a man will humiliate himself or inform on his neighbor in the face of terror and torture. How else could more than 100 men in this village of 3,000 have gone missing?

"My brother, he just disappeared one night in the hands of the secret police," said Ahmed al-Eidi, a schoolteacher. "They never gave me his body."

The brother of Mr. Hadi, the engineer, was hanged in public, accused of sedition. Mr. Hadi himself spent a month in prison, where he said he was tortured. He described the cell as a squalid room without windows or ventilation. The guards were hardened men who resented even giving him a glass of water. They administered beatings to the bottoms of his feet.

"I did nothing, I tell you that, believe me," Mr. Hadi said. "Somebody accused me of saying bad things about Saddam. I did not."

The reception for the Americans today was lukewarm. These are conservative Muslims. They complained that soldiers had distributed pictures of women with their heads bared. They asked the colonel to tell his soldiers not to touch or speak to their women at the checkpoints.

Times are hard. The value of the Iraqi dinar has fallen since the beginning of the war. Power is out all along the countryside. The Iraqis thank the Americans for bringing freedom, they desire their help, but they are beginning to ask how long the Americans will stay.

"I think 770 days will be enough," said Ali Shahar, an elementary school principal. "Two years. Rumsfeld promised two years."

This evening, a man's daughter was shot in the back of the head by misdirected American fire. The father wanted an assurance. "Promise me this will not be an occupation by the Americans," he said