Five years later.

THE horrors and disappointments of the war in Iraq should not make us forget how dangerous an Iraq with Saddam Hussein still in power would be.

One of the modern world's cruelest and most repressive dictators, Saddam remained determined to reconstitute his weapons programs. His ambition to obtain nuclear weapons would have grown all the more ardent, surely, as Iran got closer to a bomb. Five more years of sanctions--and periodic bombing--might have kept him at bay (and continued to immiserate the Iraqi people). But the sanctions were already loosening, and Saddam had become adept at cheating the system. He would have remained in power, a committed enemy of the United States, a threat to our allies, a tormentor of Iraqis, a supporter of radicalism, and a reckless gambler possessed of hegemonic ambitions in one of the world's most important regions. And, on top of all this, a friend to terrorists: Anew report by the Institute for Defense Analyses details how Saddam supported Qaeda-affiliated terror groups such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

It is good for us, for the region, and for Iraqis that Saddam is gone. But the good wrought by the invasion has been undercut by the botched occupation and the predations of our enemies. For many Iraqis, the American occupation has been a cataclysm. Tens of thousands have died, and 4 million have been displaced. In the annus horribilis of 2006, a civil war threatened to spin out of control. The chaos has, for the time being, discredited democracy in the region, and until the last year al-Qaeda had established direct control over portions of Iraq.

The surge pulled Iraq back from the brink. Iraqis might not be prepared for liberal democracy, but neither do they relish violence and the rule of fanatics. Across the country, they have risen to work with American forces newly committed to protecting them, bringing stability to areas long beset by sectarian warfare and controlled by extremists. Some 80,000 Sunnis have become security volunteers patrolling their neighborhoods. Realizing that the political wind is blowing against violence, Moqtada al-Sadr first declared and then extended a ceasefire. Intercepted communications from al-Qaeda constantly tell of its distressed state: Its fighters have been killed, it has been driven from one area to another, and the Sunni population has turned against it.

Across the country, violence has declined to 2005 levels, leaving Iraq a dangerous place but one that is no longer self-immolating. Top American officers fear, however, that they will not be able to reduce the violence much more without substantial political progress. There have been signs that ice is beginning to break in the legislature. De-Baathification and amnesty laws, though flawed, have passed. The most important remaining objective is to hold provincial elections. Most Sunnis boycotted the

2005 elections and got shut out of the government as a result. Elections in the provinces would allow forward-looking Sunnis to acquire a political voice. A bill to hold them by October 1 passed the legislature, but it has been blocked for now in Iraq's presidency council.

In 2006, the Bush administration and many conservatives were unable to see conditions in Iraq for what they were. They also were unable to budge from their favored policy (a "light footprint," "quick turnover to the Iraqis" approach). But since the beginning of the surge, it has been the Democrats who have been determinedly detached from reality. They insist on quickly withdrawing U.S. troops, and often say that doing so will improve conditions on the ground because Iraqis will finally feel the need to sort out their own problems. This is nonsense. No one in Iraq, either in the U.S. command or in the Iraqi government, believes it to be true.

Even top-level Democrats in the Obama and Clinton campaigns apparently realize the foolishness of this position. Prior to her departure from the Obama campaign, foreign-policy analyst Samantha Power told the BBC that, once elected, Obama would disregard his campaign rhetoric and work with commanders on the ground to formulate a realistic plan. This was comforting, although it would be better if the candidate were honest now, and not so set on selling the public a plan to lose the war. But even this comfort was short-lived: Since the Power interview, Obama's campaign has been insisting that it really will pull out American combat brigades at a rate of one or two a month, no matter what. Hillary talks the same game while criticizing Obama for being insufficiently believable about his haste to withdraw.

The Democrats'dash leftward is all the more distressing given that success is now achievable, if far from inevitable, in Iraq: Al-Qaeda could be chased from the Sunni heartland by the United States with the support of ordinary Arabs; the security situation could stabilize enough for the steadily growing Iraqi security forces to shoulder the bulk of the burden; and Iraq's nascent democracy could hold together, giving the country a tolerable political system. But this will require more sacrifice from our armed forces, and more patience from the public. Five years later, not only is Saddam not coming back, but it's possible to envision Iraq on a path that accords with the interests of its citizens--and, most important, of American security.