Saddam Hussein's execution provided heated debate over how right or wrong it was, writes Rasha Saad As millions of Arabs awoke on the morning of the first day of Eid Al-Adha to the news of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's execution, pundits described the cell-taped event as a costly mistake that has enraged the public. While the majority of writers acknowledged the brutality of Saddam's regime, describing him as a blood-thirsty dictator, they tried to read between the lines as to who is benefiting from Saddam's execution. In "The execution of Saddam Hussein and the mistake of formalities" Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote, "the execution of Saddam Hussein was the implementation of justice in its truest form; however it was carried out on the worst possible day." In the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat Al-Rashed said even in the West, convicts sentenced to death are not executed on Christmas day because that day, just like any other religious holiday, is one of tolerance and mercy. Al-Rashed said this was also the custom among Muslims on religious holidays during which prisoners are not executed even if sentenced to death such as Saddam. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Tariq Al-Homayed directed a call to the Sunnis of Iraq, advising them to draw a new map of alliances with other powers in Iraq. As opposed to the common perception, Al-Homayed wrote that the facts show Saddam oppressed the Sunnis just as he did all sects in Iraq. Saddam wronged the Sunnis while in power and after his removal. Al-Homayed insisted it was time for Sunnis to acknowledge there are nationalist Iraqi Shia who believe in Arabism, unity and the independence of Iraq. "The truth which Iraq's Sunnis must acknowledge is that they must seek new political alliances to build bridges with the Kurds and moderate Shia who believe in the Arabism of Iraq and the right to peaceful co-existence, as well as other Iraqi denominations. A new map of alliances must be drawn." Mshari Al-Zaydi doubted that such an alliance and reconciliation can take place, saying the execution of Saddam will fuel the sectarian war between Iraq's Sunnis and Shias. "If it had been my decision, I would have chosen a life sentence over a death sentence for Saddam Hussein," said Al-Zaydi in order for Iraq to develop a new methodology and start afresh. He said his stance was not for Saddam's sake, since he committed horrific crimes, but for the sake of removing the terms "killing" and "counter-killing" from our political vocabulary. "In this respect, we remind those who executed Saddam Hussein and those who said his execution would turn over a new leaf in Iraq of both near and distant history. Execution, killing and revenge have never been a cure-all for security," Al-Zaydi wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat. Al-Zaydi argues that the acceleration of Saddam's execution served double purposes for the Shia political forces. On the one hand, Al-Zaydi argues, the speeding up of Saddam's execution by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the Shia political class was intended to quash any notion of rehabilitating Saddam, or transforming his fate (by keeping him alive) into a bargaining chip that can be played by his supporters from Sunni and Baathist resistance. On the other hand, the ruling Shia political class in Iraq believes that executing and taking revenge is a "fateful" issue that motivates the partisan mobilisation machine of the Shia. In the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, Raghida Dergham held the Iraqi government, Al-Maliki, as well as the US administration and President George Bush responsible for what happened to Saddam. The issue at hand goes far beyond the prosecution of a regime and the lynching of a tyrant. Dergham insists that what happened "induces compulsory and critical questions regarding who is behind inciting sectarian hatred between the Shias and the Sunnis and the reality of US policies towards the Middle East region." Dergham calls on George Bush "to come forward and explain to us the real meaning of his policies towards Iraq and Iran and his perception of the role of sectarian strife in the equation that drives the US interest in this oil-rich and strategic part of the world." Dergham says neither condemnation nor indulgence in concepts, hypotheses or mutual recriminations would suffice, since the significance of the sequence of events that took place before, during and after the execution of Saddam bears fearsome consequences, not only on Iraq, but on the entire region. Also in Al-Hayat Mustafa Zein wrote, "the US could, or rather should, have stopped the execution of Saddam on the grounds that he was a prisoner of war who should not have been handed over to his enemies." If we assume the US neither recognised Saddam as a POW or international law, which holds the occupier responsible for the occupied country, it could have ordered the Iraqi government, by exerting influence on it, to refrain from or postpone the decision, if it really was trying to help in the reconciliation of the Iraqis. But, according to Zein, the White House wanted to achieve a victory on the eve of the Democrats' assuming their responsibilities in Congress, indifferent to the growing resentment against the US inside and outside Iraq. "The dictator was killed but dictatorship remains. Washington executed the symbol but the reality remains. Indeed, the US president is responsible for the daily massacres in Iraq, and the government it installed is responsible for the implementation of his policy and the dissemination of sectarian and doctrinal fanaticism. So, who will try Bush?"
