What the post-World War II occupation of Japan can teach us about ruling Iraq.

In the last week, Iraq war talk has suddenly leapfrogged over the prospective combat itself to how to remake the country after we win. The New York Times reports that the White House is considering a military occupation, and this month's Atlantic features a James Fallows thinkpiece on how nation-building might play out. Both accounts cite one particular historical case as a model: post-World War II Japan, in which Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander for Allied Powers, seized control of Japanese institutions to turn the militarized nation into a peaceful, liberal, and capitalist democracy.

The focus on Japan stems partly from the difficulties of stabilizing post-Taliban Afghanistan. A heavy American hand in Iraq, it's hoped, might prevent the sort of in-fighting and power-jockeying that has beset President Hamid Karzai and his countrymen. Yet if officials are looking to post-World War II Japan for pointers on running the Saddam-less pit of postwar Iraq, they should study not just the similarities between the two situations but also the signal differences.

The first precondition of success in Japan was America's total victory. Even before the intense air campaign of 1945, when American planes firebombed Tokyo and dozens of other cities, Japan's morale was depleted. The unspeakable toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki only heightened the people's craving for an end to the bloodshed. By 1945, about 3 million Japanese had died, and many had grown angry at the military men who had led them into war. The Japanese were ready to refute and punish their own leaders and to "embrace defeat," in the pithy phrase of MIT historian John Dower—whose definitive book on the occupation should be read by every Bush official taken with the Japanese example.

This acceptance of defeat meant that the Japanese, having surrendered unconditionally, didn't balk at American demands for demilitarization. MacArthur curtailed the powerful secret police and propaganda bureaus, dismantled Japan's weapons industries, and made sure that the new constitution renounced war. An international war-crimes tribunal executed seven of the worst militarists, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, and imprisoned another 16 for life—all with little resistance.

No outsider knows how Iraqis will view an occupation. They may welcome demilitarization like the Japanese or rejoice like the Afghans after the Taliban's overthrow (although the Taliban, who had seized power much more recently than Saddam's Baath Party, hadn't eradicated pre-existing institutions and habits as thoroughly as Saddam has). On the other hand, the Iraqis might take up arms against their American occupiers, as did the Filipinos after the Spanish-American War.

Dower has written that if Japan's Emperor Hirohito had surrendered in early 1945, as some advisers wanted, he might have spared his country not only a million deaths but also the sweeping nature of the postwar reconstruction. This conclusion points up a perversity of today's situation: The greater the devastation, the more "fabulous" the prospects (to use Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's word) for remaking Iraq. But while most of the West would welcome democracy in Baghdad, few would argue that we should go to war for the purpose of imposing it—and even fewer would favor wreaking the most ruinous damage possible in order to pave the way (literally) for a smoother post-Saddam reconstruction.

Another key to the Japan success was enjoying the world's blessing. Everyone knew that Japan had attacked the United States (along with China and other neighbors) and thoroughly lost. The world was eager to see the belligerents punished and Japanese society remade. Unlike the coming war, in which China and Russia fear American designs, no moral ambiguity surrounded the American enterprise. On the contrary, our rival powers—which were also Japan's most important neighbors—let the United States shoulder the burden.

Those who fondly recall the Japan example should also recall just how radical American reforms were. The United States not only rebuilt Japan but rebuilt Japan in its own image: as a capitalist, liberal democracy. Not only was Japan's existing constitution, dating from 1890, jettisoned, but MacArthur audaciously rejected the new draft proposed by the postwar Japanese government and had his staff write another—modeled after the U.S. Constitution, only more progressive. It included a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, a bill of rights three times as long as the United States', and women's suffrage.

The occupation reforms extended beyond politics, including measures that might not prove palatable to American conservatives this time. The United States created a new educational system, abolishing rote memorization in favor of a more progressive American curriculum. They guaranteed academic freedom and coeducation. MacArthur's men confiscated the land of wealthy property owners and distributed it among the people, resulting in a more equitable allocation of wealth than the United States had itself. The relative equality helped Japan remain stable and democratic during the Cold War.

The United States also gave Japanese laborers power they had never had before, as reformers insisted that workers have the right to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. The nation's financial houses, called zaibatsu, were broken up, though not dissolved entirely as initially planned. Leading executives were removed from power. Even with these radical reforms, it should be noted, Japan's democracy today remains deeply flawed and captive to its bureaucracy, and its economy still favors government industrial planning over free enterprise.