In the Arabic-speaking world, there is a phrase that often rings from the lips of someone who has heard good news. The phrase is: " Al hamdulillah ." Praise be to God.

 When I studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo 20 years ago, I often heard this lyrical construction. But there was another phrase I heard more often: " Insha'allah ." If God wills it. It was a reminder of the humility proper to all human enterprises -- that certain ends are beyond earthly means.

 I was reminded of these two Arabic phrases as I read what Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week when asked whether U.S. forces would leave Iraq if asked to do so by the not-yet-appointed interim Iraqi government scheduled to take power June 30. Powell prefaced his answer by prognosticating that this temporary administration "will welcome the continued presence and operation of coalition military forces." But he concluded, "(W)ere this interim government to say to us, 'We really think we can handle this on our own. It would be better if you were to leave,' we would leave."

 Surely this was met with al-hamdulillahs all the way from Basra to Mosul. A Coalition Provisional Authority poll conducted in late March and early April -- before both the fitful siege of Fallujah and the release of the abuse pictures from Abu Ghraib -- showed that 82 percent of Iraqis disapproved of the coalition occupation of their country. If Iraq had self-determination, it would determine to send U.S. forces home.

 Yet, this does not necessarily represent a conflict of interests between Iraqis and Americans. They want our forces to leave as soon as possible; we want our forces home as soon as possible. President Bush himself has made almost a mantra of saying we will stay in Iraq "as long as necessary and not one day more."

 The real debate is not about whether our troops ought to come home; it is about what would make it "necessary" for them to stay. This can be determined only in reference to what one sees as the ultimate aim of the war. And that is something that inevitably divides traditionalists from ideologues.

 Traditionalists believe wars must only be fought as a last resort to defend the nation against grave security threats. Ideologues believe wars ought to be fought to advance some ideal they enshrine as an international agenda. George Washington was the prototype American traditionalist. He steered America clear of aligning itself with Revolutionary France in France's ideological conflict with the constitutional monarchy in England. Woodrow Wilson was the prototype ideologue. He insisted on recasting World War I as a war to make the world safe for democracy, and as an ironic result ended up making the world more dangerous for everyone.

 A traditionalist view of the war in Iraq is that it was to eliminate the threat Saddam's regime posed to the U.S. and our allies. An ideological view is that it was to make first Iraq, then the broader Middle East, safe for democracy. Continued...