PONDER THIS

Everyone has advice now for the U.S.: bring in U.N. peacekeepers, bring in the French. They're all wrong. There are only two things we need: more Americans out back and more Iraqis out front. President Bush needs to give the U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer III, more resources to get basic services here running and Iraqis in charge as fast as we can. This is not Germany 1945. America is much more radioactive in this region. We don't have infinite time.

Which is also why we need Iraqis out front — fast. They need to be seen to be solving their own problems. They need to be manning the checkpoints because only they know who the good guys and bad guys are, and they need to be increasingly running the show so attacks on Iraq's infrastructure are seen and understood as attacks on Iraqis, not on us.

And, most important, we need them out front because the Iraqi silent majority is our only potential friend in this whole neighborhood. Everyone else wants America to fail. But we have not empowered that Iraqi silent majority enough, and it has been too timid and divided to step forward yet. "The Iraqi people are the only ones in the area who have an interest in your success," said Masrour Barzani, the security chief for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a real friend of America's. "But you have not allowed that friendship to emerge."

It can only emerge if America gets the basics right — water, jobs and electricity — and lets Iraqis run things faster. "Let [Iraqis] take the credit; let them take the blame," Mr. Barzani said. "We need Iraqis to face their own problems and each other, and right now you're in the way."