Washington ? I spoke recently with a woman named Mayada al-Askari, whose life history has been written by author Jean Sasson (“Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman’s Survival Under Saddam Hussein”) and just published by Dutton.

It is, by any measure, a compelling story. Mayada al-Askari is an Iraqi aristocrat. Her ancestors prospered under Ottoman rule, her uncle was prime minister of Iraq for 40 years, her paternal grandfather fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia. Her maternal grandfather was a founding father of Arab nationalism.

But the fortunes of her family fell suddenly and inexorably when Iraq’s monarchy was overthrown in 1958 by senior army officers. The generals, in turn, were supplanted in the 1960s by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, which imposed its especially horrific brand of tyranny. In 1999, Mayada al-Askari, a divorced mother of two who ran a small printing business in Baghdad, was arrested and tortured in the notorious Baladiyat prison. She was later released, and escaped to Jordan, where she now lives.

To be sure, the life of Mayada al-Askari is scarcely typical. By Iraqi standards, she lived a comfortable, even privileged, life for many years. But one virtue of Jean Sasson’s account is that she uses the fortunes and misfortunes of the Al-Askari clan to illustrate the modern history of Iraq: its complex tribal structure, kaleidoscopic loyalties, interlocking directorates and violent upheavals. By the time Mayada shares a prison cell with frightened women from all segments of society, the wilderness of mirrors is a stage set for nightmares.

Nearly every American must agree that the fall of Saddam Hussein is a blessing for Iraq. It is impossible to exaggerate the incessant terror and violence of Saddam’s regime or the grinding hardship and degradation of everyday life in Ba’athist Iraq. In a place where someone like Mayada al-Askari is imperiled, we can scarcely begin to comprehend the misery.

But the same could be said in dozens of other places. The plight of the average North Korean is particularly grim for being so well concealed from the outside world. Millions of Africans have died in the past few decades from misrule, disease, random killing and civil war. Tibet, Azerbaijan, Cuba, Iran — the list remains impressive.

At a time when American soldiers are dying every day, however, the case for Iraq’s particular status demands restatement. For the fact is that not only was Iraq uniquely baleful — as a hitching post for terrorists, and source of instability in a volatile part of the world — but Iraq is now pointedly symbolic as well. The battle for Iraq is part of the larger war against terrorism. And if the United States fails to win that war — or worse, chooses to abandon the struggle because of faulty public relations — we become vulnerable in ways that Osama bin Laden can only dream about.

In one sense, the Bush administration is paying the price for deferring to its critics. In seeking to persuade the United Nations to take action against Saddam, the White House was guaranteed a diplomatic failure. And by resorting to weapons of mass destruction as a casus belli, it transformed the search for armaments into a dangerous distraction. Saddam Hussein was a strategist, purveyor and quartermaster for terror, and when and where his chemical and biological weapons are found is largely irrelevant.

So the administration’s frustration at this juncture is understandable: Dramatic progress is being made in Iraq, from the restoration of civil life to the repair of its shattered infrastructure. The business of restoring a semblance of normality to a people debased for decades is no overnight affair, and the task of building an Arab democracy is unprecedented.

Mayada al-Askari testifies that the great majority of Iraqis regard America as liberator, not imperial intruder, and are grateful for deliverance from Saddam Hussein. The guerrilla war now being waged against coalition troops is largely confined to the “Sunni triangle” near Saddam’s home town, Tikrit, and represents the desperate plight of the Ba’ath remnant and the presence of free-lance warriors from neighboring states.

It is fair to argue whether the White House has successfully framed its arguments, or the Pentagon has sent enough infantrymen to do the job. But the question is not whether the challenge is worth meeting, as if there were an alternative to fighting the war against terrorism. The question is whether the United States is capable of sustaining the body blows victory requires. These attacks are aimed at Americans at home, not Iraqis in Baghdad, and are informed by the belief that U.S. resolve cannot endure, and the troops will hurry home in response to bad publicity.

Philip Terzian is the associate editor of the Providence Journal.