So Saddam has been executed.
However, despite 'conservative' commentators rushing to comment that his death 'is an important milestone', 'allows Iraq to turn the corner', 'marks the end of a dark chapter', and all the other clichés, his death now does not mark anything much, since the fate of Saddam and the fate of Iraq parted company a long time ago, and the daily life of Iraqis in the present hell is far darker than it was under his regime.

Nor will his passing affect the insurgency much one way or the other, since his faction is but a small faction in the insurgency.

His trial was a shambles, and did not provide in the slightest degree the hoped for platform to reconciliation as the Truth Commission provided in South Africa. He was hanged on a (relatively) minor incident early in his career, to avoid awkward questions of his support from the West cropping up in the proceedings, and most of his victims, the thousands of Sunnis, will not receive and moral or legal justice.

If anything, he was the only person who symbolised (and achieved) a strong unitary Iraqi state, and his passing thus symbolises the inevitable fragmentation and chaos into which the country is now descending.

Bill Torbitt