War we can always have if we want it; peace we should zealously seek, and keep when found.
- Pietro Ziani, Forty-Second Doge of Venice (1205-1229)
As Saddam Hussein, head defiantly uncovered, stood atop a gallows awaiting death - in a building in the predominately-Shiite Khadamiya district of Baghdad that once was the headquarters of his military intelligence service - just before six a.m. on 30 December 2006, a new era in peaceful Iraqi governance looked like more of a pipe dream than at any time in the previous three years since his capture. As the state officials and guards assembled below the gallows, sectarian harassment erupted. The nefarious and precisely-targeted chants of "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada" [al-Sadr, a Shia cleric who is the leader of the radical-Shia Mehdi Army militia and has long been an open enemy of Hussein] from several of those present opened the path for further impromptu diatribes against Saddam. Another shouted out that Saddam was going to Hell. One of the executioners even leaned into the deposed former ruler, declaring, "You have destroyed Iraq, impoverished its people and made us all like beggars while Iraq is one of the richest countries in the world." Only after Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor during the deposed leader's trial, spoke up - rightly demanding that the crowd pay enough respect to allow a convicted man his rights - did the crowd revert to silence. Moments later, the deed was finished, the sixty-nine-year-old body swinging lifelessly from its yellow noose.
The implications of Hussein's execution are only beginning to be felt. For Sunnis in Iraq, Saddam's death essentially signifies the assassination of the last legally-elected ruler of Iraq. The Maliki-led government is nothing more than that of a pro-American puppet government in the eyes of Sunni leaders and former Baathist sympathizers. It will be increasingly difficult, in the weeks and months to come, for the Iraqi government to convince the Sunni community that this execution was not merely an act of retaliation.
Indeed, it will be hard to prove otherwise to the greater Arab world. The execution, carried out at the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday celebrated worldwide at the end of the hajj, is being condemned as an "illegal" execution. And, indeed, all signs point to this execution being illegal. Kurdish judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, who first presided over Hussein's trial, enlightened reporters with the knowledge that, under Iraqi law, "no verdict should be implemented during the official holidays or religious festivals." The timing of this execution, coupled with the treatment of Hussein's handlers in his last moments, is eerily reminiscent of executions of prisoners during Saddam's twenty-four-year reign of terror.
In predominately Shia areas, citizens danced in the streets and fired weapons in the air. Celebrating the death of a main who routinely persecuted them for their alternate interpretation and practice of Islam, there was a palpable sense of accomplishment and relief as the news of Hussein's termination traveled around the region and the world. Justifying the decision to carry out the capital punishment during a holiday, national security advisor Mouaffaq al-Rubaii - a Shia - declared, "We wanted him to be executed on a special day."
Indeed, the date chosen for the execution - the Muslim commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim's readiness to obey the command of Allah to sacrifice his son Ismael - will only prove to be contentious. While Shiite popular opinion contends that the death sentence would be a blow to Sunni questions of governmental legitimacy, the realities of how it was carried out will prove to merely create more questions. The inability of the government itself to refrain from sectarian feuding as they carried out an internationally-reviewed execution of a former sovereign is indicative of deeper-rooted issues in the very system that is supposed to help begin the path toward national reconciliation.
The realities of the crisis in Iraq is that every major player in this issue are fighting for their own doctrine to come to the forefront of the federal leadership. Sunnis throughout Iraq, once the privileged class under the Baathist regime, now feel underrepresented in the government. Shia feel vindicated by their prominent role in the new administration and fear any growth in Sunni power and reversion to Saddam-era ways. As each fight the other to maintain or gain greater control of Iraq, no secular, wide-reaching doctrine will ever come to fruition.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, who stood to gain the most from Saddam's overthrow and execution, are instead disturbed by the undertones of how everything has played out so far. While the Kurdish population is enjoying the greatest gains following the American occupation, they feel as though their wishes are still not being heard. Because, while Saddam was convicted and sentenced to death for his direction of the 1982 murder of 148 people in the Shiite village of Dujali, the Kurdish population wanted Saddam to be present at the ongoing Anfal trials for his systematic attacks on their numbers in the latter part of the 1980s. Now, the full spectrum of knowledge cannot be known - a reality that brings little joy to the Kurds. And the reversion to Baathist-style pre-execution torture tactics is even more disturbing still...
But, unfortunately, the greatest debate over the execution is the release of an illegal cellular-phone video recorded by a guard present at the hanging. The video, portraying the crowd taunting Saddam and then showing his body swinging from the gallows, is a harsh video depiction of what is really going on with the current Iraqi administration. The guard who has filmed this video is now in custody; even more disturbing, however, are the words of deputy prosecutor Munqith al-Faroun concerning the arrest: "Maybe one of the guards did it secretly, but there were two officials who were doing it openly." Unable to control either its security personnel or, indeed, its high-ranking government officials, these fissures in a theoretically-secular system are disheartening. Saddam stifled the voices of Kurd and Shia alike during his tyrannical rule. Now, unshackled, all the voices ring out in a cacophony of chaos. Long-seated resentments along dogmatic lines are causing the radical populace of Iraq to cannibalize its nation; no one philosophy is rising above the din to unite these warring factions. A reconciled, freely-sought coalition dedicated to rebuilding its infrastructure for the good of all groups and citizens is prerequisite to any step forward in Iraq.
Too long have the Iraqi people lived in a class society where one sectarian group held power in a despotic grip, stepping on the necks of vanquished competitors on the way. Now that that dictator is deceased, the country must find a new identity. Because, as the startling footage of the execution has shown the world, little has changed in the ways of thinking. Currently, there is merely a different sectarian group operating under a different name that is largely carrying out the status quo of the past five decades...and until this changes, there will be no hope for any peace in Iraq. War they have long desired, and war they shall continue to have; only once each faction comes together in a zealous and united search will there be any hope of finding the path toward a peaceful Iraq.