With the triumphant fall of Baghdad, America’s attention is increasingly turning to the leadership of postwar Iraq. There’s a lot of talk, in particular, about how much of a role “exiles” should have in ruling Iraq after the war. One national newspaper this week went so far as to write an editorial attacking the bona fides of one formerly exiled Iraqi leader, Ahmad Chalabi, by claiming that “the man has not lived in his native country for 45 years.” For one thing, that’s not true; Mr. Chalabi spent much of his time living in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq between the end of the first Gulf War and 1996. But even if it were true, it wouldn’t be an argument against his involvement in postwar Iraq.

For one thing, in the history of exiles returning gloriously to their native lands, 45 years is not a long time. Consider the case of Israel. While there was a permanent Jewish presence in the Holy Land, most of those who came alive with the Zionist dream in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries had never been to the land. Their parents and grandparents had never been to the land. In fact, by comparison to the Jewish people’s exile from Israel in the years 70 to 1948, Mr. Chalabi’s absence from Iraq is merely a blink of the eye.

It’s not as if Mr. Chalabi has put this time away from Iraq to waste. He was instrumental in winning passage, in 1998, of the Iraq Liberation Act, which laid the conceptual groundwork for the current liberation. It’s not as if he is a stooge of Republican neoconservatives, either — the Iraqi National Congress’s staunchest friends on Capitol Hill have included Democrats such as Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, and Stephen Solarz, the former congressman from New York. Nor is Mr. Chalabi a stooge of America, either. He’s been openly critical of the Bush administration, for instance, for the sluggish pace of its planning for postwar Iraq.

Mr. Chalabi has paid a personal price for exile. He was subject to a politically motivated prosecution in Jordan in connection with his successful business there as a banker. He ran the risk of being assassinated by Saddam’s goons. And even now, upon his return to his country, he is joining in the still dangerous fighting for its liberation.

It’s worth noting, too, that those at the CIA and the State Department and in the press who are most ardently pushing the “exile” complaint against Mr. Chalabi have their own candidate for the job of Iraqi leader — another exile named Adnan Pachachi. “The State Department is as fond of exiles as is the Pentagon. They just have a different set of exiles,” said the American Enterprise Institute’s Reuel Marc Gerecht, who calls Mr. Pachachi “a surreal specimen of sclerotic Pan-Arabism from 30 years ago.”

Our own sense is that once all this history is known to the Iraqi people, they will make their own choice about a leader, and that the choice may surprise those at Langley and Foggy Bottom and elsewhere who, for whatever reason, find reason to sneer at Mr. Chalabi’s heroism. The CIA and State were this week leaking a report suggesting that Mr. Chalabi had no support in Iraq; meanwhile the Associated Press reported that Mr. Chalabi “was mobbed” yesterday in Nasiriyah “by thousands of people cheering the collapse of Saddam’s government.” It was an inspiring sight, and it is sure to be followed by more over the next months, as a free and democratic government eventually takes over in Iraq.