Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.

The ''real reason'' for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough. Because a terrorism bubble had built up over there -- a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things ''martyrs'' was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such ''martyrs'' was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government -- and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen -- got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.

The ''right reason'' for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime. Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten us were never Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims, who are produced by failed or failing Arab states -- young people who hate America more than they love life. Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas of mass destruction, which are what really threaten us.

The ''moral reason'' for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbors, and needed to be stopped.

But because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war, and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the right reasons and the moral reasons, it opted for the ''stated reason'': the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America. I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had no links with Al Qaeda, and that we couldn't take the nation to war ''on the wings of a lie.'' I argued that Mr. Bush should fight this war for the right reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this W.M.D. argument for P.R. reasons.

Once the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's genocidal evil, my view was that Mr. Bush did not need to find any W.M.D.'s to justify the war for me. I still feel that way. But I have to admit that I've always been fighting my own war in Iraq. Mr. Bush took the country into his war. And if it turns out that he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious matter.

But my ultimate point is this: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A. But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. I won't feel one whit more secure if we find Saddam's W.M.D.'s, because I never felt he would use them on us. But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow. Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that.

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Liberals desperate to distract U.S. public

Amid the general media and Democratic frenzy over Niger yellowcake, it is Bill Clinton who injected a note of sanity. "What happened, often happens," Clinton told Larry King. "There was a disagreement between British intelligence and American intelligence. The President said it was British intelligence that said it... British intelligence still maintains that they think the nuclear story was true. I don't know what was true, what was false. I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying, 'Well, we probably shouldn't have said that." '

Big deal. End of story. End of scandal.

The fact that the Democrats and the media can't seem to let go of it, however, is testimony to their need (and ability) to change the subject. From what? From the moral and strategic realities of Iraq. The moral reality finally burst through the yellowcake fog with the death of the Hussein brothers, psychopathic torturers who would today be running Iraq if not for the policy enunciated by President Bush in that very same State of the Union address.

That moral reality is a little hard for the left to explain, given that it parades as the guardian of human rights and decency, and rallied millions to try to prevent the very policy that liberated Iraq from Odai and Qusai's reign of terror.

Then there are the strategic realities. Consider what has happened in the Near East since Sept. 11, 2001:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has been overthrown and a decent government installed.

In Iraq, the Saddam regime has been overthrown, the dynasty destroyed, and the possibility for a civilized form of governance exists for the first time in 30 years.

In Iran, with dictatorships toppled to the east (Afghanistan) and the west (Iraq), popular resistance to the dictatorship of the mullahs has intensified.

In Pakistan, once the chief supporter of the Taliban, the government radically reversed course and became a leading American ally in the war on terror.

In Saudi Arabia, where the presence of U.S. troops near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina inflamed relations with many Muslims, the American military is leaving - not in retreat or with apology, but because it is no longer needed to protect Saudi Arabia from Saddam.

Yemen, totally unhelpful to the United States after the attack on the USS Cole, has started cooperating in the war on terror.

In the small stable Gulf states, new alliances with the United States have been established.

Kuwait's future is secure, the threat from Saddam having been eliminated.

Jordan is secure, no longer having Iraq's tank armies and radical nationalist influence at its back.

Syria has gone quiet, closing terrorist offices in Damascus and downplaying its traditional anti-Americanism.

Lebanon's southern frontier is quiet for the first time in years, as Hezbollah, reading the new strategic situation, has stopped cross-border attacks into Israel.

Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been restarted, a truce declared, and a fledgling Palestinian leadership established that might be prepared to make a real peace with Israel.

That's every country from the Khyber Pass to the Mediterranean Sea. Everywhere you look, the forces of moderation have been strengthened. This is a huge strategic advance not just for the region but for the world, because this region in its decades-long stagnation has incubated the world's most virulent anti-American, anti-Western, anti-democratic and anti-modernist fanaticism.

This is not to say that the Near East has been forever transformed. It is only to say that because of American resolution and action, there is a historic possibility for such a transformation.

It all hinges, however, on success in Iraq. On America not being driven out of Iraq the way it was driven out of Lebanon and Somalia, which is what every terrorist dreams. And with everything at stake, what is the left doing? Everything it can to imply that the enterprise was launched fraudulently and will result in a hopeless quagmire.

Yes, the cost is great. The number of soldiers killed is relatively very small, but every death is painful and every life uniquely valuable. But remember that just yesterday we lost 3,000 lives in one day. And if this region is not transformed, on some future day we will lose 300,000.

The lives of those as yet unknown 300,000 hinge now on success in Iraq. If we win peace and leave behind a democratic society, enjoying, as it does today, the freest press and speech in the Arab world, it will revolutionize the region. And if we leave in failure, the whole region will fall back into chaos, and worse.