No one who watched the exhilaration and exuberance of Iraqis facing down the threat of bullets in order to cast their ballots can fail to have been moved. And for those who were actually in Iraq to witness this firsthand, battle-hardened and cynical journalists included, it must have been bliss indeed to be alive at dawn Jan. 30 and relief to be still alive at dusk.

Ironically, the enthusiasm and courage with which ordinary people seized their opportunity to choose their own leaders is a repudiation of central parts of American foreign policy.

It is also a paradoxical explanation for the intensity of much anti-American sentiment. For it is a forceful reminder of just how strong the passion for freedom is, how strong the loathing for regimes and rulers who brutalize their own people is, and how bitter the feelings are toward outside powers who prefer to prop up friendly dictators rather than team up to topple them. The balance sheet of American support for, and opposition to, dictatorships has usually been negative for any given year since the end of World War II.