There would seem to be overwhelming political, military and social reasons for the United States and its coalition partners to withdraw, as soon as possible, from Iraq. The troops want to go home, the Iraqis want to run their own country and US President George W. Bush wants to win the next election. However, an over-precipitate withdrawal would be full of dangers. Some are self-evident: civil war for oil and power between the majority Shi'ites and the Sunnis who ran the country under Saddam Hussein; tribal warfare over ancient quarrels; claims for self-rule and land by the Kurds; interference from Iran; even the reappearance of Mr Hussein himself. If these were not enough, there is another danger which could do immense harm to the rest of the world: if the coalition pulls out without securing a political settlement and drawing the teeth from Mr Hussein's loyalists and the foreign al-Qaeda-style suicide bombers, international terrorism will claim a great victory. There are precedents which would support this claim. On October 23, 1983, the headquarters of the US Marine peacekeeping contingent in Beirut was destroyed by an Islamic Jihad suicide truck-bomber. This, the first of the major suicide bombings, killed 241 American servicemen. A similar attack the same day on the French peacekeeping headquarters killed 58. The US acknowledges that the bombing was a major factor in its withdrawal from Lebanon within months. Ten years later, 18 Americans died in a two-day battle in Mogadishu which became notorious as the 'Black Hawk Down' incident. The Somalis who shot down the two helicopters were trained by Osama bin Laden's Afghantsi warriors to fire their rocket-propelled grenades at the helicopters' vulnerable tail assembly - exactly the same technique Mr Hussein's loyalists have been using. The US announced its plan to pull out of Somalia a few days after the Black Hawks went down. Militant jihadists glory in these events. They say that they prove the 'Great Satan' is a 'paper tiger'. The fact that the US, disillusioned with the rejection of its peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon and Somalia, was seeking a way out, does not matter. The perception was that the world's superpower, with all its military and economic strength, had been defeated by religious heroes armed with the most basic modern weapons. It is a perception that is a most powerful recruiting agent. Allied to the beguiling thought of becoming a shaheed - a martyr guaranteed a future life in paradise - terrorism was seen to be not only a victorious method of warfare, but also one carrying the greatest of all rewards. How much more powerful will it become, then, if it can be claimed that Mr Hussein's loyalists and the shaheed have succeeded where the tank divisions of the Republican Guard failed so ignominiously? It will not matter if it is argued that the coalition was agreeing to the wishes of the Iraqi people and withdrawing to enable the Iraqis to rule themselves. What the terrorists will see is the forces of the western oppressors running away, tails between their legs. Or, as Mr Hussein put it in his latest taped call to arms, like 'cursed losers'. It is from such perceptions that legends are made, and the danger of this particular legend is that it will lead to an upsurge in terrorism around the world. There can be little doubt that the US army's current show of drastic force in Mr Hussein's heartland around Tikrit is intended to crush his followers in the most visible fashion, preferably resulting in the death or capture of the dictator himself and of his ailing, but effective, operational commander, General Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. With such a military success under their belt, the Americans would be able to concentrate on a workable agenda for peace. The stakes are high in this deadly game. On the one hand, a triumph for the terrorists and a devastating loss of prestige for America, and on the other, a victory for Mr Bush in his war on terrorism, another four years in the White House without having to rely on a few disputed votes in Florida and, possibly, even a decent life for the people of Iraq. Christopher Dobson is a journalist who specialises in terrorism