Considering what terrorists are seeking to accomplish, the last thing they want is for the people of Iraq to be defending it.

Jihadists want the long-term presence of American troops to justify their call to arms and to suicide bombers willing to sacrifice their bodies.

That’s one reason not to slow withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The other reason is that, as military experts and intelligence estimates concur, the risk of the nation tearing apart amid civil war has subsided dramatically. Iraq can look to a future where, though strained by ages-old sectarian grudges and blood feuds, it can sustain efforts to stay whole and keep the peace.

As Tuesday’s deadline approaches for withdrawing U.S. troops from key cities, we can anticipate that attacks will spike as scattered insurgents and al-Qaida seek to undermine the tranquility being waged under a popularly elected government.

Catastrophic as the attacks have been in several cities in recent days, the car bombs used by terrorists are not the same thing as the gun battles between the government and the militia of maverick Shiite Muqtada al Sadr, the grass-fire flare-ups of Shiite-Sunni bloodshed, or the retribution exacted by sectarian death squads. Those have subsided.

As for al-Qaida, when U.S. troops no longer are its target and Iraqi security forces are representing Iraqis alone, it will have no public support and little fuel for the flames it seeks to incite.

Hence, we can expect the pace of attacks to pick up as next week’s deadline approaches.

Terrorism is an act of desperation aimed at altering moods and events. The terrorists of Iraq are growing more and more desperate because they see a lack of public support for what they’re doing.

Though more blood will be shed, American troop withdrawal stands to suck much oxygen out of the effort to make Iraq a staging ground for armies without borders.

Where we can, we must strike back at them. But in Iraq, it’s Iraqis’ time to do the fighting.