Sentence a long step backwards for Iraq

[cal04]

THE rapid confirmation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein is a long step backwards for Iraq.

It is a brutal, if inevitable, display of victor’s justice that offends the principles that the US said it sought to uphold in toppling Iraq’s dictator. It will deepen the rifts between Shias and Sunnis, perhaps already fatal to Iraq’s unity.

The loud welcome that the US gave yesterday to the Iraqi court’s ruling was ugly. It sounded like an attempt to extract some proof of success, for want of any other. But if Iraq achieves stability, it may well now be under a Shia “strongman”, not quite the contrast to Saddam that the US intended.


(snip)
The Iraqi Government should have spared Saddam the death penalty. When it did not, Mr Blair should have condemned it: first, on principle, for adding to the brutality of a country already awash in blood; and secondly, on the pragmatic grounds that it will inflame Iraq’s sectarian wars even further.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20981646-601,00.html

[kaneko]

1. I agree

wholeheartedly. One more atrocity added to a sea of atrocities.