The news out of Iraq sounds grim--killings, chaos, instability. But these problems are likely to be temporary. As the Pentagon reverses course and admits to the reality of a long occupation, the Baathist resistance that is currently on the front pages will be defeated. Over time the United States will be able to assert fully its authority in Iraq--and that’s when the real problem begins. An effective American occupation will produce order, stability and basic services. But if history is any guide, it will also produce nationalism. And that nationalism will likely be defined in opposition to the United States and its presence in the country.

The administration made a crucial mistake in asserting authority too lightly, both militarily and politically. Militarily, the results are plain. Politically, they may be more damaging and long-lasting. Every time Jay Garner announced that he was "not in charge," Iraqis must have wondered: then who the hell was? And when American officials explained that they were staying just long enough to get the country’s services working, they initiated a succession contest. Iraq’s political forces have been revved up, searching for ways appeal to the public. Instead of writing constitutions, figuring out how best to decentralize power, creating courts and central banks, they are waiting for the Americans to go home.

Paul Bremer is trying hard to reverse previous errors, asking the military to use force aggressively and signaling that the United States and Britain will be governing Iraq for a while. But as troops hunt down and kill Baathists, they also terrify ordinary Iraqis. Virtually every newspaper account of American encounters with Baathist guerrillas notes that ordinary Iraqis seem dismayed or scared at the sight of American troops, and that the public's mood is souring on Americans.

As Bremer rightly postpones empowering an interim Iraqi authority, the country’s ambitious new politicians--even the Pentagon favorite, Ahmed Chalabi--have begun grumbling about American imperialism. Some, of course, are not just grumbling. Senior religious leaders and clerics are beginning to preach that resistance to America is a religious duty. It doesn’t take a soothsayer to see that as Iraqi politics develop, there will be a vibrant market for anti-Americanism. Americans, in turn, will watch these demonstrations and ask their politicians, "Why are we in this country if no one wants us there?"

There is a growing cottage industry in Washington of new imperialists, people who argue that America should embrace its role as a liberal, imperial power. There is an important truth in this view. There are chaotic and violent parts of the globe, with failed states and horrific ethnic and religious wars. In some of them, an outside force might well provide order and help put these countries on a course toward genuine self-rule.

The only problem, of course, is that we live in an age of nationalism. America occupied Germany and Japan after World War II for seven years. But in 1945 Britain ruled India, France governed Algeria, and the Dutch were in Indonesia. Today, for a benign and liberal colonialism to work, it has to be wrapped in a mantle that does not threaten. That mantle is the "international community." Yes, it’s more a myth than a reality, lacking power or purpose. But that’s the point. After all, no one is denouncing colonialism in Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, Cambodia, or anywhere else where multinational trusteeships have been established.

The Bush administration chose not to make Iraq an international project. There are advantages to this approach. It will allow for greater efficiency and clarity of decision-making. But nation-building is ultimately not a managerial challenge; it's a political one. To stay in Iraq, the United States will need not just power and efficiency, but legitimacy.

One source of that, of course, is the Iraqis themselves. After all, the president often explained that the United States was going to war to "give Iraq back to the Iraqis." The problem is, which Iraqis? Before the war ended, Kanan Makiya, a brave Iraqi dissident, made eloquent pleas in The New Republic Online for a quick transition to democracy. Any time an American official forgot to mention democracy in a speech on Iraq, Makiya got worried. Then he went to Iraq and, a few weeks after the war, wrote a cover essay for the magazine. Moving quickly toward Iraqi self-rule, he argued, would hand over the country to whatever political forces happened to be standing in a post-totalitarian Iraq--most likely extremist, illiberal and intolerant groups.

It would be a tragedy if in the search for quick legitimacy, America ended up empowering the kinds of forces it is currently battling all over the Arab world. Makiya ends his essay by saying, "I did not come home for that." And American troops did not leave home for that, either.