The continuing senseless attacks on Iraqis and Iraqi interests as well as Allied targets have been ascribed qualities that one would a popular uprising. Unfortunately, the indiscretion of targets - from Allies' humvees to the Iraqis' oil pipelines, no preference - seems to indicate that the objective of Iraq's antagonists is simply to batter the country's population into reclaiming the same submissive fear they called their own while under the thumbscrews of Saddam Hussein.

An audio tape with a voice claiming to be the dead or missing dictator has appealed to the nation, demanding their support in a subversion of the occupation. From the start, such posturing will have limited results. As long as George W. Bush is in office, Americans will not leave the country. Accepting that, will weekly scenes like this endear the nation to the purveyors of random violence?

Seven Iraqi police recruits died today as explosives packed into a utility pole near a police station went off during the graduation ceremony for the first American-trained class for a new police force.

More than 70 people were injured as shrapnel from the metal pole and the bomb ripped through a large crowd around noon, said a hospital director where most of the injuries were treated in bloodstained corridors and emergency rooms.

On the street outside the police station, pools of blood blotted the pavement where the dead and injured had fallen during the ceremony that was to mark the successful transition from the old era of police torture and corruption to a new era of more civil society with the benefit of American training.

Fox News carried a report that quoted an Iraqi who was convinced that Americans, having apparently missed their chance to slaughter Iraqis wholesale with mass incendiary, decided to try some psychological malice and shred a police force they'd spent weeks training:

Still, many of the victims blamed America for the attack.

"The Americans have done it. Who else would do a thing like this?" said police instructor Abdel-Karim Hamadi.

To Mr. Hamadi - with all due respect - many other, more logical sources for the murder come to mind.

And, in fact, the continuing attempts to grind down the will of Americans - to liberate - and Iraqis - to right and govern themselves civilly - may tell us more about the people of Iraq than the mood or persistence of Allied democratization. Will they realize that it is their very future that is being threatened in its infancy by many of their own people? Will they take the leap of faith and accept that their occupiers could easily have annihilated the whole of their arid, backwards, ghoulish, Ba'athist, terrorist stockade - but never dreamt of it, instead taking great pains to allow the Iraqis the reins to a fruitful destiny wreathed in moral responsibility? Would the Iraqis truly cheer on the destruction of their budding country, turn about and traipse straight back into hell?

Many in the intellectual classes are sitting on sidelines with wide-angle lenses, pushing and shoving for the split-second capture of the moment when the Allies crack. They've got it all wrong: the Allies, mindful of a possible future viewed through the spoilt mirror of September 11th, will never give up. History tells it more completely, with every vanquished, would-be conquerer given a hand back up onto its feet.

It's the Iraqis who are on trial - but amidst the worry from the middle and the cackling from the left, we would be wise to put good money on and wholehearted faith in the people of Iraq.