BEIJING, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- As Muslims worldwide are
preparing to welcome the joyful religious holiday of Eid al-Adha starting from
Saturday, the ousted and jailed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was
hastily executed by hanging at dawn in Iraq.
The former Iraqi strongman who had been in power for
decades and wielded considerable influence in the Middle East for many years has
finally perished for good.
History will be the best judge of the rights and
wrongs of the former Iraqi leader, but the fact that the Iraqi government and
the U.S. authorities in Iraq chose to execute Saddam in such a hasty way is
something worth thinking about.
It is widely believed in the international community
that Saddam's execution will not solve the problems and clear the troubles
currently haunting Iraq.
It is true that Saddam Hussein should be held
accountable for political, economic and social problems in Iraq during decades
of his reign.
The major cause of Iraq's current chaos and conflicts
is not the person who was in prison, but the Unite States which launched the
Iraq War in 2003 and has since maintained its military occupation.
As far as the foreign occupation is still there,
anti-occupation insurgencies will not stop, and the conflicts and chaos will not
end in Iraq.
One of the major reasons for the U.S. to take the
trouble to launch the Iraq War was to establish a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad
in order to replace the anti-U.S. Saddam regime, so it can promote the
American-style democracy and values in the country.
What the U.S. government didn't expect was that it
was exactly its military interference that has intensified the already-existing
conflicts among Iraqi sects.
Moreover, unfair power redistribution in the wake of
the fall of the Saddam regime has weakened the authority of the Iraqi central
government, while some sectarian paramilitary forces have been bogged down in
frequent and violent bloodshed. In face of this situation, the jailed Saddam
Hussein didn't have much influence.
Ever since Saddam's rule, Iraq has been in the
whirlpool of the Middle East crisis. The current disorder in Iraq offered a wide
leak for foreign forces, especially some extremist and aggressive forces, to get
involved in Iraq's domestic affairs, further exacerbating the turbulence in the
country. For this, the occupiers should be held responsible.
To sum up, it's evident that an end to Iraq's
conflicts and insurgencies is unlikely to be achieved by simply trying to get
rid of Saddam Hussein physically. What's worse, executing the former Iraqi
leader may even worsen the already bad situation in the country.