While the Democrats and their allies are pressing the notion that America didn’t have cause to go into Iraq, that President Bush misled the Congress and the American people, a remarkable thing is happening back in Baghdad. A broad coalition of Iraqi groups, including country men who have been in exile for years as well as a number of individuals who were inside Iraq during the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, are coming together as part of a council that will at least begin picking up the tasks of returning self government to Iraq. This is happening barely three months after the liberation of the Iraqi capital.

There is much to be desired about the council in formation. Not all of the groups this council will comprise are pro-American democrats. It will include, for example, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is a group with ties to Tehran. It also is likely to include Adnan Pachachi, an 80-year-old Sunni strongman with strong backing from the Gulf States, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and advocates of the old Arab status quo. In addition, the council will have only modest powers, at least in the beginning, while final authority over Iraq will rest with the American regent, L. Paul Bremer.

But the council is likely to include some of the pro-American visionaries, like Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, who are students of James Madison and the American founders. So in the council is the beginning of the dream of Arab democracy and free market development. This camp has recently been agitating for the creation, at the earliest possible date, of an Iraqi national security force that would have the training, authority and equipment to stop the killings that are going on in the country, very much including bringing to a halt the killings of Americans, and pressing the hunt for Saddam and his sons. Once they are captured or killed, things will begin to calm.

The kind of piling on that is being launched against President Bush and the administration over alleged intelligence failures, exaggerations, and misrepresentations, remind us of the surge of doubting and doomsaying that erupted when the war was but a few days old. The Democrats and the anti-war crowd seemed to thrill at the possibility that the president might have blundered, giving them something to exploit in the presidential election of 2004. In the event, the invasion went much quicker and was much more successful than the early doubters wanted. And it may well be that this is how the post-war restoration is going to go, as well. It certainly is the hope that is beginning to emerge from the post-war dust.