No Iraqi poet will sit down to write stirring poetry in celebration of yesterday's transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. No jihadist, it must be conceded, will see in the drama that has played out in Baghdad reason to call to a halt the campaign of holy terror let loose on Iraq's cities. That fabled "Arab street," we know, will insist that this is a quisling Iraqi government doing the bidding of the Pax Americana.

But the unadorned, brief ceremony that saw the American regent, L. Paul Bremer, to a C-130 at the Baghdad airport had a dignity and a power all its own. There had never been an American design to dominate and rule the Iraqis. This was not a charade that has just been pulled off in Iraq. We are eager to come out well from this expedition to Iraq, and the transfer of authority marks the beginning of a new relationship between Iraqis and their American liberators.

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To be sure, it is not "normal" sovereignty that has come to Iraq. A country with 160,000 foreign soldiers on its soil cannot be said to be wholly free. It is idle to pretend that the American ambassador, John Negroponte, will run a standard diplomatic mission. He will dispose of a vast reconstruction package, and a formidable military presence will underscore his authority. But freedom can't be a fetish. There are the needs of Iraq, and they are staggering. There is the nemesis of Iraq's freedom, an insurgency drawing its fury and pitilessness from the forces of the old despotism, and from jihadists from neighboring lands who have turned Iraq into a devil's playground. We should be under no illusions about this insurgency. Its war against the new Iraq will not yield. For their part, the jihadists have a dreadful animus for the "apostates" within the world of Islam who ride with the infidels...