FORMER president of Iraq Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging on December 30. The trial was flawed and politically motivated and the execution carried out with indecent haste on the day of the Muslim festival of sacrifice. Some see this as a premeditated assassination. The aftershocks will reverberate Iraq and the region for years. The president of the United States, George W Bush, hailed the execution as an important milestone on Iraq’s journey to democracy. But much of the world was stunned by surprise and shock.
   The US president can boast of other ‘milestones’ on the road to liberate and bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. He toppled Saddam in 2003; destroyed the secular, modern and prosperous state of Iraq in a region of emirs, kings and other repressive regimes protected from the wrath of their subjects by American military presence. He installed a puppet Iraqi government through ‘free’ elections held under guns and tanks, a government that he sheltered from its own people behind the ‘green zone’ of the US military in Iraq. He stewarded an Iraqi constitution that established a quasi-clerical Shia-dominated government; by design or default released the genie of dormant sectarian strife threatening to tear Iraq apart.
   Could the US administration under the president be proud of these milestones?
   Now Iraq under his watch has become a quagmire for the occupation army, a hell on earth for the Iraqi people, many of whom left their home to seek refuge elsewhere. Faced with the failure of his enterprise in Iraq, the US is now demanding that the fledgling and faltering Iraqi government restore public security, hasten reconciliation, end sectarian war, and rebuild destroyed infrastructure. But the Iraqi government has neither the capacity nor the will to do that.
   In 1982, Saddam’s security forces allegedly killed 148 rebels who ambushed the presidential convoy in Dujail. He was tried and sentenced to death for ‘crimes against humanity’. Since 2003, the US commander-in-chief’s military has killed more than 500,000 innocent civilians and sacrificed 3,000 US soldiers in Iraq. Saddam did not wage a war on America nor had he possessed weapons of mass destruction nor had he any known links with al-Qaeda. The war on Iraq was in violation of international law, was immoral, unjust and unnecessary; was based upon perfidious lies and deceptions.
   The prestige and influence of America in the Middle East and the wider world have plummeted to all time low. Huge resources have been squandered.
   How many more milestones will be crossed before this disastrous journey ends?
   Saddam is dead and gone; he will not return to threaten any country, least of all America. But is it the end of an era, an idea, and a phenomenon in Iraq and in the wider region? Or will it open a new chapter? How will the Iraqis remember and reconcile the staggering toll of death and devastation of their beloved country; the despicable torture and humiliation inflicted upon them by alien occupiers, and now an imminent dismembering of their homeland?
   Since 2003, the appalling lack of security of life, dire poverty, and intolerable lack of life support services make Iraqis feel they were better off under the ‘brutal’ Saddam era. Indeed they were. Their bitter experience made Iraqis deeply sceptic of freedom and democracy gifted by an alien benefactor; the freedom they gained made them captive to immense sufferings. Liberation turned into damnation. A criminal and cruel tragedy indeed! It takes gross callousness to celebrate these as milestones on the road to democracy.
   Saddam has been tried and executed. But who will bring to trial those responsible for the destruction of an entire country and society of proud and prosperous people? Which court will judge whether the murder of half a million innocent civilians of Iraq constitute ‘crimes against humanity’? If the victor’s justice executed Saddam, which court will bring the victor to justice or mete justice to the victor?
   The evil game of the ‘neocons’ is no longer a secret; but the plotters prefer to brag and boast in a perpetual state of self-righteous denial.
   It is too soon to predict the fallout of Saddam’s execution. The only thing certain is that reverberations will rock Iraq and the region in the coming years if not decades. The Saddam factor weakened over time since his capture and detention; it was not the central driving force behind the Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation. Therefore, those who hope the Sunni insurgency might soon peter out in the absence of Saddam could well be wrong. The possibility of a new Baathist revival and return has receded at least in the near future. But then who knows, a deteriorating situation might yet spring from nowhere in a land familiar with past revolutionary upheavals and united under a strong man?
    In the short term, the post-Saddam Iraq most likely will see an upsurge of Sunni violence. The present Shia-dominated government may get a new boost of confidence, and respond by suppression in its bid to consolidate its hold. But clearly, without greater and more generous efforts by the Shia-Kurd alliance to accommodate the Sunni concerns and interests, national reconciliation and reconstruction could remain elusive.
   There are other possible post-Saddam scenarios.
   The Iraqi regime might calculate that the worsening sectarian strife following the execution of Saddam would oblige the American military to stay indefinitely to protect it. That could turn out to be a miscalculation. As the domestic pressure for bringing the troops home mounts, the president might eventually do just that leaving the puppet Maliki regime vulnerable. The president may prevaricate faced by the recommendations of the high profile Iraq Study Group. But not for long. For American troops to remain indefinitely in Iraq the stakes might prove too great to bear militarily and financially.
    The disintegration of Iraq into three parts could reach a point of no return if the Maliki regime proves unable or unwilling to control rogue militias or proves incapable of unifying diverse sects and interests of the population. There are wider ramifications beyond the borders of Iraq. Civil war in Iraq torments neighbouring Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Sooner than later they could get engulfed in a wider conflict with dire consequences.
   There could be one winner. That is Israel for whom Iraq under Saddam had been a thorn in the flesh. Lebanon is in internal turmoil and Syria contained and isolated. Israel has no immediate compulsion to enter the fray, unless it wishes to make itself available as a proxy to attack Iran.
   In the political perspective, Saddam’s execution has removed an iconic symbol of defiant and resurgent Iraqi and Arab nationalism that tried to stand up to the neo-colonial domination by the West in general and by America in particular. The death of Saddam removed the last of the many Arab nationalist heroes of the past, who had been both ambitious and charismatic, who had dreamt of Arab national unity and regaining lost pride. But the disarray and impotence that cripple the Arab world are legendary. The distance that divides the regimes and their peoples remains wide.
   Yet, Saddam’s execution might not be that last nail in the coffin of Arab nationalism. Decades can be a blip on the screen of history. As to the other player in the region, Saddam’s removal cleared yet another obstacle on the way of Iran’s emerging influence in Iraq and the region. But Iran without a record of war on its neighbours might remain cautious and circumspect at least for now in the use of its new strength.
   A regional ‘superpower’ like Iran could be perceived as a threat by the Saudi dynasty, the Jordanian monarchy, and the Gulf States, and further away Egypt too. The king of Jordan sounded worried and frightened of three impending ‘civil wars’ that could create a void for Iran to fill.
   A wider regional Shia-Sunni conflagration is too frightening to contemplate. The consequences could be far greater than mere destabilising several regimes neighbouring Iraq. National interests are the permanent instruments of foreign policy. If the US is obliged, as is likely, to give support to its client Arab regimes in such a conflagration, it could effect a virtual coup against Iran at relatively low cost.
   The Maliki government is failing to control rogue ‘militias and death squads’ and prove itself as a national government. In a latest twist, it is revealed that the execution was more like lynching of the ex-president by Shia revenge. That adds fuel to the fire of the Shia-Sunni civil war.
   The US ‘liberated’ Iraq to hand it over to Shia majority rule under a democratic dispensation. That said there is nothing to prevent the US from stoking the Sunni majority neighbours of Iraq to rally against the Shia-dominated Iraq and by extension against the Shia-led Iran.
   Calculated or coincidental, a wider Shia-Sunni conflict could be a ‘lifeline’ to a beleaguered US president, to become the ‘new’ long-term US strategy he is groping to find.
   In the short term, if Iraq burns and disintegrates, if the Sunni-Shia conflict assumes grotesque dimensions, does it hurt the US? What it hurts is the long awaited Arab reawakening and emancipation of people of the region.
   The execution of Saddam might prove a minor, if at all, milestone on the hazardous and uncertain road to enduring US domination of the Arab Middle East; a resurgent and more confident Iran makes that road even more hazardous. President Bush said Saddam’s execution set an important milestone on Iraq’s road to democracy and its alliance with the US. The journey on that road as of now is hugely precarious to say the least. Hope and prayers are not enough to prevent tragic events of history. Yet, let us not lose hope or fail to pray, wisdom and sanity shall prevail, occupation will end, and Iraq will set its own milestones on the road to regain national sovereignty and reconciliation. Above all, let us hope Iraq shall be rescued from the inferno and its people will return to peace and prosperity.

The message of Saddam Hussein’s execution is simple. Shias are in command in Iraq for the first time since the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire enabled colonial Britain to cobble three provinces into the minted state of Iraq. But in the process of hanging a man who ruled Iraq with an iron grip for decades, the present Shia-dominated coalition in office has highlighted its own weakness. It participated in a show trial with American fingerprints all over it and made haste to hang Saddam on a holy Muslim day in a country under foreign occupation.
   The Saddam legend has been enhanced by the manner in which he met his death and if Americans believe that they will benefit from the end of the Saddam era by physically liquidating him, they are living in a fool’s paradise. In a region living under the shadow of the Palestinian tragedy, US contribution to making Iraq a failed state is noteworthy. Before meeting his end, Saddam pressed a few buttons: against Americans and ‘Persians’ and in favour of Palestinians.
   One immediate consequence of the execution was a spike in violence in Iraq and the world can expect a major attack on an iconic target. Of greater import will be the future evolution of Iraq. All accounts suggest that President George W Bush has decided to leave his disastrous legacy to his successor two years down the line. He is loath to set a target date for withdrawing American troops and is chary of talking to Iraq’s neighbours, in particular Iran and Syria. Whether there will be a new ‘surge’ of American troops or not, the remainder of the Bush administration seems destined to totter from one crisis to the next.
   American goals in invading and occupying Iraq have been changing over time, from finding weapons of mass destruction to implanting democracy. The rhetoric of making Iraq a role model for the Greater Middle East has an ironic ring three years after the invasion. The American neoconservative dream of donning the mantle of the Roman emperors to reorder and rearrange the world, starting with West Asia, has unravelled in the sands of Arabia.
   The modern world is much too complex to answer to one country, however powerful, but the consequences of America’s vainglorious dream will continue to haunt the universe. Saddam’s fate is very much a part of the American tragedy because it has challenged the very basis of the neocons’ philosophy in the killing fields of West Asia. To divert America’s ‘war on terror’ from Afghanistan to toppling Saddam was flawed on several counts. It created a new base of terrorism where none existed and empowered Iran as the pre-eminent regional power by eliminating Tehran’s formidable Sunni rival and installing a heavily Iranian-influenced Shia government in Iraq. If President Bush were to continue to follow Israel’s wish list, he would attack Iran, with even graver consequences.
   Whatever Saddam’s crimes — and there were many — he represented more than himself and Iraq. Rather in the mould of Nasser of another age, he had a pan-Arab view of the region and was not afraid of challenging America on such primordial issues as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He can be faulted for supporting the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, but for him it was a tangible expression of support for the Palestinian cause. There can be nothing more humiliating than the continuing occupation of one’s land and Saddam gave voice to a cause others pay lip service to.
   In a sense, Saddam exemplified the old adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely. He overreached himself in starting a suicidal war against Iran for eight long years and, even worse, decided to help himself to Kuwaiti oil and treasure counting on the Iraqi historical memory of being deprived of what became Kuwait. But Bush Senior, unlike his son, was wise enough to withdraw his painstakingly built coalition from Iraq after achieving his aim of liberating Kuwait, admittedly in the hope of Saddam’s defeat helping topple him. In the event, Bush Senior underestimated Saddam’s resilience.
   But Saddam was not unique in how he governed in his milieu. Traditional strongmen are wont to rule authoritatively in the Arab world and the United States and the rest of the western world were happy to do business with him and were willing to overlook the crimes for which he has been executed or for the gassing of the Kurds in a case that is still proceeding. After Saddam’s execution, Arabs generally view America and the West as a two-faced Janus for judging leaders and countries on the basis of expediency and self-interest totally divorced from morality.
   Perhaps America is making the point in stark terms what President Bush has been saying: either you are for us or against us. Saddam was not for America in the last years of his rule. He was quite happy to do business with Washington and received military largesse and intelligence during his war with Iran, and he was apparently led to believe that Washington would turn a blind eye to his avaricious goals in Kuwait. For Washington, he became an enemy from being an ally because his objective did not gel with its interests. After all, one cannot extinguish a country by absorbing it in this day and age. Saddam simply misread the signs and was drunk on his own power. The rest, as they say, is history.
   The sad fact is that, despite America’s rhetoric on democracy, it is not willing to brook it in international affairs. Cutting across Republican and Democrat lines, the United States claims pre-eminence and a unique status on the strength of its military power and other accomplishments. Differences are between the propensity of neocons to exercise military power unilaterally and others acting multilaterally by preference. Besides, traditional US conservatives believe that ‘soft power’ is the best way to exercise power to persuade the world to its point of view. Saddam’s end is set to exacerbate these differences in the American context.