The US-British occupation forces in Iraq have received a real boost to their morale with the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, in an attack by American troops in Mosul.
The two men had a grisly and horrifying record as principal agents of a cruel regime, and few Iraqis will mourn their passing. This military success should encourage the Americans to broaden the basis and mandate of their role in post-war Iraq, which remains bogged down in administrative and political ill-preparedness to bring stability, order and reconstruction to the country.
There are significant signs that the Bush administration may be willing to seek more international support because they need it, on the basis of securing a new United Nations mandate to legitimise their presence. This success - assuming they can convince Iraqis that it is genuine - could help them overcome the hubris which led them to undertake the attack on Iraq without United Nations sanction and the pride which limited international involvement because they did not want the UN to have a prominent role in post-war reconstruction. This week, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, and the special UN representative in Iraq, Mr Vieira de Mello, welcomed the setting up of the new governing council there, which was nominated by the US but contains representatives of several major currents in Iraq's political life.
If the council is recognised by the UN "as an important first step towards the full recognition of Iraqi sovereignty", as Mr Annan put it when he welcomed a delegation from it in New York this week, the stage would be set for negotiating a mandate to broaden international involvement. The US-British occupying administration has been dogged with huge problems, notably an escalating resistance campaign which has brought the number of US casualties to a greater number than were killed in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. They have been so preoccupied with this that tasks such as restoring elementary social and health services and clearing land mines have lagged far behind, creating a whole new set of resentments among the Iraqi population.
Politically, the US hopes to see the governing council accepted as a decisive step towards "a free and sovereign and democratic Iraq", as President Bush put it yesterday. He underlined that 19 states have pledged 13,000 troops to support the US-British force in Iraq and appealed for more international political and military support. Up to 200,000 troops will be needed over several years to run the occupation - far more than was originally envisaged. The cost and impact of that are only now becoming clear to the US public, just as more questions are being asked by the media and opposition there about the reasons for going to war and the administration's unilateralist approach. If genuine progress is to be made in creating a new Iraqi police force to carry some of the burden, the US would be well-advised to swallow its pride and accept a greater UN role.