Aftermath of the Saddam verdict

Saddam’s execution

cannot become the tableau against which anyone dares to proclaim “Mission
Accomplished”: it will rather be only the sad, and sadly unavoidable, end to an
individual career of tyranny.

Today’s verdict in the first war crimes
trial of Saddam Hussein was neither surprising nor unwarranted.  It was unsurprising because, despite whatever
gaffes the prosecution may have committed, the people of Iraq demanded
that justice be done to the man who had tormented them for so long.  And it was warranted because the evidence is
clear that Saddam was responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred
citizens of Dujail, in addition to probably hundreds of thousands of others,
Iraqi and non-Iraqi, elsewhere.

In his statement on the trial, President
Bush was, quite properly, careful to avoid giving the impression that he agreed
either with the verdict or with the death sentence it entails.  The President was right to point out that the
conclusion of Saddam’s trial reflects well on the new Iraqi government and
enhances its claims to sovereignty.

But this verdict in no way guarantees that Iraq will flourish as the democracy America and our
coalition of allies envision that it can become.  In all likelihood, the short-term effect of
the verdict may well be the reverse: Ba’athist loyalists and other insurgents
may take advantage of the moment to step up their attacks against the new Iraqi
government and coalition troops in the country.

It will be interesting to watch both the
aftermath of the verdict in Iraq
and its effect on the mid-term elections and the debate over the war here at
home.  Here’s the danger: moments like
today’s verdict and Saddam’s execution, whenever it comes, have the potential
to tempt us into rosy thinking about the state of the conflict.  Saddam’s absence from the scene may, over the
long term, deprive insurgents of a symbolic rallying point, but it would be
foolish to think that his death should automatically speed up the withdrawal of
US troops from the country.  Saddam’s
execution cannot become the tableau against which anyone dares to proclaim
“Mission Accomplished”: it will rather be only the sad, and sadly unavoidable,
end to an individual career of tyranny. 
It is only a particularly vengeful, and in that way particularly
un-Christian, way of thinking that might suggest otherwise.