Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

The End | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Like many others, I also followed the final chapters of the life of the tyrant, Saddam Hussein, who had messed around with his country and in the end suffered just like his country. I remembered the chaos and commotion at the funeral of Khomeini when the masses scrambled for his coffin and what happened after. I remembered that Saddam Hussein had begun a foolish war in which he wasted land, honor, bloody and money all to no avail. Khomeini considered peace and ceasefire “a chalice of poison that must be drunk!” Saddam Hussein was the perfect model of imperfection for all Arabs and sought to promote the idea that he was a guardian of Arab nationalism, so he invaded his neighbors and annihilated his own people with a treacherous ideology. Evidences of his crimes are abundant; isolating Egypt, invading Kuwait, hostility towards Syria and fuelling the conflict in Lebanon. In Iraq, Al Anbar, Dujail and Halabja will always remain witnesses of history to Saddam Hussein’s crimes.

Failure should not be addressed with failure, nor should we eliminate injustice with more injustice and negative messages should not be conveyed in new occasions. The major criticism that is aimed at the black era of Saddam Hussein’s regime could potentially recur in the current Iraqi government, which failed to seize the opportunity to achieve justice and establish the truth. Unfortunately, the current Iraqi government threw away the opportunity, highlighting sectarianism and taking revenge in favor of particular groups and militias.

Today, here is Iraq raising an invidious and poisonous slogan that “Sectarianism comes first” and only after that come justice and equality, otherwise how would we explain the decision to execute Saddam Hussein on the first day of Eid ul-Adha for the entire Arab nation (excluding the Shia!). How could the current Iraqi government persuade sectarian militias that it represents all Iraqis when in fact it was very keen to provoke the sentiments of Sunnis in particular, in a clear and deliberate manner? It was despicable that one presenter on the Al Iraqiya channel, which broadcast the execution of Saddam Hussein, apologized for the continuation of the recitation of the Holy Quran on the channel in order to clarify that the recitation was not for the sake of “consolation” for the death of Saddam Hussein. According to the presenter’s explanation, a junior employee failed to “interrupt” the early broadcast of Quran recitation to transmit the “delightful” news of Saddam’s execution. This is the current situation in Iraq.

Amid the abhorrent sectarian outcries, the execution of Saddam Hussein is distressing and a shameful end, as well as the beginning of a new chapter of the unremitting madness in Iraq.