January 1, 2007
Taking stock of Saddam’s execution
As Iraq’s Shiites danced in the streets to celebrate the execution of Saddam Hussein on December 31, there were few expressions of regret to be found anywhere.
Most of the dissenting voices fall into one of two broad camps. First of all, there are the Iraqi Sunnis (especially those from Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit), who supported the dictator as their benefactor. Saddam perpetuated the Sunni minority domination of Iraq, which has been the pattern since the country was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
Closely allied with the Tikritis/Sunnis are the radical Muslim activists in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and elsewhere, who hold that any enemy of America is a friend of theirs. (The fact that Saddam killed so many Muslims did not seem to matter.)
From outside the Muslim world, there were those who opposed the execution of Saddam Hussein on more idealistic grounds. Germany’s Angela Merkel, adhering to the EU taboo regarding the death penalty, reiterated her own nation’s opposition to capital punishment. A Vatican spokesperson also expressed regret over the sentence, suggesting that it would only perpetuate the cycle of bloodshed in Iraq.
There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was an evil man. As the dictator of Iraq, he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. There is simply no alibi for someone with such a long rap sheet: from the massacre of 148 Iraqi dissidents in 1982, to the gassing of Kurdish villages in 1988, to his war on Iraq’s Shiites following the first Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991. Then there are the innumerable private killings conducted through Saddam’s secret police force within Iraq, which can never be accurately tallied. No one in recent memory has more deserved the gallows than Saddam Hussein.
All the same, it is important to assess what his death accomplishes---and what it does not--- in the wider context of the situation in Iraq. Saddam Hussein is not America’s problem anymore. But Iraq still is.
Saddam Hussein’s death will not end the violence in Iraq. The Bush Administration has at times implied that the late Iraqi president was an evil genius who imposed a hideous form of government on a peaceful populace. There are indeed cases in history in which a single dictator or group manages to take over a fundamentally peaceful society for malevolent ends. Hitler’s Germany is of course the textbook example in this regard.
But Iraq is no Germany. And while Saddam Hussein was a singularly violent character, he was also a product of the violent Iraqi society from which he sprang---and a wider Muslim Arab culture that condones and often glorifies the widespread use of violence. Saddam did not create violence in Iraq; he merely channeled it to serve his own personal agenda. This explains why Iraq continues to be a mindlessly violent place even after the dictator’s death
Saddam Hussein’s death will not make America’s job in Iraq any easier. Indeed, his execution may even harden the resolve of the country’s Sunni insurgents, who now have a martyr to avenge.
Saddam Hussein’s death will not bring Iraqis together. Iraqis have never been united by anything----except their dislike of foreign occupiers. Iraq was not even a nation until the 1920s. At the end of World War I, the British government cobbled the country together from three provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. But the three main ethnic groups that reside in these provinces----Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds---have never liked each other. Their squabbles bedeviled the British, as they now bedevil America.
Saddam Hussein’s death will not stop al-Qaeda. A linkup between al-Qaeda and a Saddam armed with nuclear/biological weapons was the nightmare scenario that spurred the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Subsequent evidence has indicated that this may not have been the imminent development that we all imagined it to be at the time.
Nevertheless, al-Qaeda and its numerous splinter groups still threaten us; and the hanging of Saddam Hussein will not give them a moment’s pause. Many of the insurgent fighters that coalition troops face in Iraq everyday never had any connection to Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. The vast majority of these mostly young males are more inspired by the apocalyptic version of Islam espoused by al-Qaeda.
So by all means, yes: let’s permit ourselves a brief celebration over the demise of the Middle East’s worst dictator---especially since his overthrow has cost the lives of more than 3,000 soldiers from the United States and our allies.
But let’s make it a short celebration; there is still a lot of work to be done in Iraq.