In the long and remarkable legacy of Iraq — a land where the world's first cities and written words appeared — Saddam Hussein is an aberration, and his people know it. Their political energies and economic potential have been cruelly suppressed since he grabbed power two decades ago, and they know that, too. No American, including President George W. Bush, wants to change this regime more than the 22 million Iraqis who live under it.

Even if Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and could not assist global terrorists, it would be consistent with America's purpose as a nation to help the Iraqis throw out this tyrant in favor of a government based on the people's consent. But how have dictators most often been ousted in the last two decades?

In the Philippines, Chile, South Africa, the communist-ruled nations of Eastern Europe, Mongolia and (just two years ago) Serbia, civilian movements used nonviolent weapons such as strikes, boycotts, blockades, civil disobedience, nonviolent sabotage and mass protests to dissolve the legitimacy and stability of oppressive regimes. Although dictators and their military and security forces are seen as monolithic, nonviolent strategists have split them apart and decimated the loyalty of those who follow orders. As that happens, tyrants fall. Saddam would be no exception.

When a leading Iraqi democracy activist was briefed recently on the dynamics of nonviolent resistance, he said, "This is wonderful but impossible for Iraq, because Saddam is not Milosevic, he is Stalin." He was asked what would happen if 5,000 protesters suddenly appeared on the streets of Baghdad. "Saddam would shoot them all," he replied with certainty. What about 10,000? "Same thing." Or 20,000? His eyes flickered and he hesitated. "Even that number, he would kill." How about 100,000? "Well," he paused, "if that should happen, Saddam would be finished." Sensing the implication, he asked, more urgently, "How can that be done?"

In that question lies the crux of the matter. The possibility of mobilizing civilians in active opposition has been habitually discounted as unrealistic by policymakers where brutal regimes seem to leave no political space. But history shows otherwise: Political space has been pried open by courageous acts of unarmed people who have risked all for their freedom.

Solidarity prevailed in Poland even as 1 million Soviet soldiers maneuvered on Polish soil. General Augusto Pinochet routinely tortured dissidents in jails. But that hardened opposition, which rose and overwhelmed him. Slobodan Milosevic was an indicted war criminal whose hold on Serbia was seen as invincible until dissident students helped unify the opposition and unravel the fabric of his police state.

A sense of crisis now envelops Saddam. The ranks of his security forces already have shrunk from a ratio of 65 for every 1,000 Iraqis 10 years ago to seven for every 1,000 today. Army detachments are patrolling residential areas looking for new deserters. Events are overstretching his forces, which cannot be everywhere, opening up points of vulnerability that a civilian-based resistance using nonviolent tactics could exploit.

For example, his regime likely would fold without oil revenues, and there is a finite number of oil-field workers. Visible, high-risk methods are not needed to organize a mass stay-at-home campaign among them. And what would Saddam do? Go where they live and shoot them? Would that get oil pumped?

Another example: Saddam plans to reassert his legitimacy by holding a new referendum on his rule, set for November. A voting boycott can be organized at reasonably low risk, and there are not enough soldiers to drag people to the polls. If enough Iraqis who want him out simply did not vote, Saddam would be humiliated and his authority eroded further.

Saddam has dodged bombing and would-be assassins but never has faced such multiple, sustained challenges. With the Iraqi currency at new lows, a wave of voluntary shop closures or other business interruptions could liquidate any residual popular belief that Saddam can maintain control. Then, willingness to join the opposition could supplant fear of reprisals and the collective paralysis it breeds. This reversal of psychology would enlist the spirit of hundreds of thousands of people, as it did before in Warsaw, Manila, Santiago and Prague.

A dictator's personality, however despicable, is not how he holds on. That requires a security nucleus he can depend on, terrorizing a few to intimidate the many. Last November Saddam sacked his counterintelligence chief for failing to stop dissidence; the repression is relentless but also evidence of vast, latent opposition. The question is how to activate it.

That won't happen with a frontal charge on an inner core built to repel violent assaults. Thus has Saddam survived several attempted coups. Civilian movements aim first at everyday locations where the regime needs routine compliance with its edicts. Meeting that resistance, less hardened units would hesitate to exterminate ordinary civilians once the scope of dissension is seen. Instead of a contest based on who has the most guns, it becomes a race to control the rate of disruptions, in which Saddam is on the defensive.

Ironically, those who insist that his shell can be cracked only by a military strike now argue that the army will melt away when conflict breaks out. Former Iraqi general Najib al-Salhi said in July that 1,000 Iraqi officers were ready to defect, but that Americans had to emphasize before invading that "they are only after Saddam Hussein, and not his army, otherwise they would not have the support of the Iraqi people." It might be hard for 250,000 U.S. troops to appear to be chasing only one man.

Fearful of war, tens of thousands of Baghdad residents have begun to leave the city. The regime now is monitoring bank transactions, apparently concerned about money leaving the country. With human flight from the capital and capital flight from the country, the moment for mass civilian action is ripe. This foreshortens the time needed to mobilize a movement. What is missing inside Iraq today is a cohort of activists well-versed in strategic nonviolent action. But these skills and know-how rapidly could be transferred by established international trainers.

Unfortunately, the most proficient advisers in strategic nonviolent action have not been consulted by U.S. policymakers because the value and mechanics of civilian-based resistance are not well understood in Western governments. "I am dumbfounded that the CIA and Defense Department have not yet grasped the impact that nonviolent resistance could have on Saddam's regime," says Mark Palmer, former U.S. ambassador to Hungary in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

In Iraq, nonviolent training would be absorbed quickly by well-motivated pro-democratic groups in northern Iraq who can influence thousands of Kurds living in Baghdad. Equally receptive would be Iraqi Shi'ite oppositionists. "Our viewpoint regarding regime change is that it has to be at the hands of the Iraqi people," said Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, leader of a major Shi'ite group, on July 31.

Expatriate organizations representing millions of Iraqis in cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles, London, Sydney and Stockholm are primed to support resistance. The Iraq Civic Action Network has been organized to promote civilian action. One of its founders, interviewed on radio programs beamed into Iraq, says that new defectors coming out have called to thank him, saying in effect, "The people are ready."

Despite this readiness, other groups, including the Iraqi National Congress (INC), are wedded to military strategies. While not dismissing civilian action, INC Chair Ahmad Chalabi sees it as subordinate to U.S. attack. Unfortunately, there is no historical example of a foreign invasion preceding nonviolent resistance, resulting in a dictator's fall. Violence drives people indoors, not onto the streets. NATO's bombing of Serbia stalled opposition to Milosevic; only afterward did it generate the thrust to evict him.

A rising tide of civilian-based resistance also would offer a potent pretext for Arab and international support of any following moves, civilian or military, to drive out Saddam. On March 17 of this year, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal declared that "regime change in Iraq" should receive outside assistance "if the Iraqi people do it."

Which would be less likely to inflame the Islamic world and hand a fresh rallying cry to terrorists? Unprovoked U.S. bombing and invasion of an Arab nation, denounced by U.N. Security Council members, or a domestic civilian campaign whose leaders request outside help to liberate the country?

The Reagan administration's assistance to opposition groups in the Soviet bloc is an instructive precedent. "Ronald Reagan understood that oppressed people could rise up on their own against dictators," says Palmer. "He not only encouraged them to do that, he supported programs giving them financial and tactical assistance." Those same movements led to more stable political conditions later because they gave standing and homegrown legitimacy to their pro-democratic leaders.

The U.S. war on terror would benefit from the model of a regime change done with indigenous, nonmilitary forces. While President Bush has called North Korea and Iran other parts of the "axis of evil," no one suggests U.S. military action against them. But Iran is home to a vibrant opposition, fueled mainly by young people. Tutoring them in strategic nonviolent conflict could pay huge dividends.

And there is a second tier of authoritarian rulers who aid or harbor terrorists. "If regime changes are going to be necessary in the war on terror, nonmilitary strategies for unseating dictators have to be seriously considered," says Hans Binnendijk, director of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University.

Nonviolent strategies are compelling not because they represent a higher morality but because they can pulverize oppressors. Civilian-based resistance to Saddam would not be "nonviolence" for its own sake; it would be a pragmatic way to take him down. Regardless of whether the United States ultimately takes military action to pre-empt his use of weapons of mass destruction, there is a window of opportunity now to spur this resistance.

When it comes to controlling his own people, what appears to be Saddam's strength actually is his chief weakness. The best "inside-out" strategy to exploit that and dethrone Saddam is available to the Iraqi people — by striking, boycotting, not voting and refusing any longer to cooperate with a monster they know has ravaged their rights and fortunes. They can push him over the precipice, if the United States and other democracies give them the right help.

Ackerman is chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and was executive producer of the PBS documentary Bringing Down a Dictator. DuVall was coauthor of A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict and executive producer of the PBS series of the same name.