This photograph by Khalid Mohammed of The Associated Press shows a jubilant crowd in the streets of Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, celebrating the U.S. military’s departure from the nation’s major urban centers. In addition, fireworks colored Baghdad’s skyline and thousands of people attended a party in a city park where singers performed patriotic songs.

The departure of U.S. forces is a small step toward the ultimate goal of leaving Iraq by the end of 2011, which is still a longtime away.

The reaction by Iraqis, however, is telling. It shatters the Bush administration’s contention that the Iraqis wanted us there and saw the Americans as liberators.

In fact, they wanted us so there so badly that the day we left their major cities, they created a national holiday. If we were truly liberators rather than invaders and occupiers, would they have not made a national holiday for the day Saddam Hussein was deposed?

Still, the move is a good one, though the schedule for complete withdrawal is excessively slow.

I am not completely confident, however, that this is a permanent withdrawal. It is easy to see how a few bombings could be an excuse by the United States to move back into the cities, especially if the current regime is threatened.

However, that should not be our concern. The United States has done all it can and more than it should have to prop up the Iraqi government. Time to let the bird fly the coop, so to speak.

If Iraq falls into civil war, then so be it. Let the people of Iraq determine the nation’s destiny. It is not for us to enforce peace in Iraq.

As Christopher A. Preble of the Cato Institute said, “For decades, the United States has been in the business of doing for other governments what they should be doing for themselves. Now would be a good time to start to change this pattern.

“Iraq is a test case for this change. Nothing that happens there should divert us from a new course.”