"The Awakening of Baghdad"
An open question: can anyone produce an example from history in which an occupying power successfully, over the long run, subdued the local population with military force?
I can't think of one. They usually wind up with drawn out guerilla warfare finally ending in full-scale revolution (Vietnam), or the colonial power is atrophied by the stretched-out conflict and eventually loses support at home, and leaves (India, Spanish and French colonies). Or, at best, the conquering power manages to assimilate the territory, leading to ethnic conflict fifty years or more later (Soviet republics).
Yet another method exists, one that has proved successful beyond historical expectation, one that we Americans basically invented. That is, of course, cultural hegemony and the thin wedge of the free market. It too, has its pitfalls, and I'm not going to defend it in full. But in contrast to a military campaign, it is less brutal, cheaper (hell, it makes money!), and, I think the record shows, more successful.
Yet here we are, in Iraq, still trying to do what's never been done.
The comparison with Vietnam is obvious, but it's worth calling it out explicitly: after our military left Vietnam in the '70s, it began the long recovery process, which finally, in the '90s, turned into a cultural victory. Today's NY Times has a travel article called "The Awakening of Hanoi", depicting the burgeoning art scene of the "stylish, European-influenced metropolis" that it has become.
The sooner we stop trying to force the Iraqi people at gunpoint to become what we want them to be, the sooner they can begin the transformation to what they want to be. Which, I think history has shown, is probably the same thing.