SADDAM HUSSEIN is likely to be hanged soon — an Iraqi court rejected his appeal on Tuesday.
What difference this will make to the people of Iraq is not clear. Certainly, the families of some of his victims will rejoice. Other people will regret the relatively swift justice that denied them the chance to confront the former tyrant in court and tell the stories of their own suffering. Generally, Saddam’s death will be good news for Shiites and bad news for Sunnis. He oppressed them both, but Sunnis also shared in the spoils of his rule.
Saddam’s fate may become just one more reason to raise the level of civil violence in Iraq — a new rationale for Sunni attacks and Shiite reprisals, for Shiite attacks and Sunni reprisals.
Of course, that will matter to the United States, whose troops have been stuck in the middle of Iraq’s war for several years now. Any increase in violence means more U.S. soldiers killed and more wounded.
That seems like a steep price to pay for the death of someone who ceased to matter in the United States as soon as he was captured. In fact, when his army was defeated early in the war, Saddam became inconsequential — powerless, homeless and scared. The only thing that kept him in the public mind was the assertion that he had been somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
That assertion was not true. After his long war with Iraq and his adventure in Kuwait more than a decade ago, Hussein confined most of his villainy to his own territory, killing and torturing his own people. He was not a terrorist or a supporter of terrorists, just a run-of-the-mill tyrant intent on preserving his own power, wealth and skin.
Iraq did not become a haven for terrorists with a grudge against the United States until Saddam was defeated and his army and security services dismantled. The terrorists, as they have done elsewhere, took advantage of the chaos to move into the country and hone their bomb-making, mortar-firing and sniping skills against U.S. troops and the U.S.-backed government.
Out of that deepened chaos, a civil war grew.
International critics have questioned the fairness of Saddam’s trial, but it would be difficult to argue that his execution would not, in fact, be justice.
But justice for Saddam will not mean peace for Iraq or an easier time for U.S. troops.
It will just mean that one evil man is dead.