Even China, though highly insensitive to democratic principles, is discovering, with the dangerous spread of AIDS, an obligation to listen to popular clamor, and the need for public support to justify government actions. The US, owing to its horrific treatment and torture of prisoners in Baghdad, has had no option but to search for international legitimacy after denying and defying it for so long, in order to extricate itself from the chaos and drama of what is now Iraq.