AS U. S. and British forces blast their way into Baghdad, heading toward the military victory that almost everyone agrees is inevitable, the mainstream news media outlets that had opposed or raised questions about the war have quickly been backing down. Everyone wants to cheer the winners – and if the war doesn't turn out to be as bloody as some of us feared, the Bush administration will just use that fact as justification for the invasion and as proof that the critics were wrong.

But this is absolutely the worst time to back away from antiwar protests and dissent. If indeed Saddam Hussein can be toppled and Iraq conquered without incurring tens of thousands of casualties and deeply alienating the population of that country and the rest of the Arab world – and that's still very much in question – the real battle will have only begun. Bush administration officials have already said they don't want the United Nations to play the lead role in administering postwar Iraq. Instead, U.S. military forces will occupy the country for the indefinite future – and that's a recipe for disaster. As Ze'ev Schiff, an Israeli journalist and coauthor of a book on the war in Lebanon, recently told the New York Times, "There is just no such thing as an enlightened occupation."

That means the United States has to get out quickly and bring in the United Nations – or the war, and the threat of terrorism, will continue for the duration. The peace movement needs to keep the pressure on.