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I despair reading the daily reports of death and destruction. Muslim killing Muslim every day, factions at each other's throat everywhere, suicide bombers who don't care who they take with them, soldiers slain followed by joyous celebrations by gloating killers, kidnappings, threats, fear... in fact a true abyss.

Now Saddam was a brutal, evil, corrupt dictator who ruled with an iron fist, ordered killings on a large scale and wasn't averse to attacking Arab neighbours. Sadly it now seems that a brutal dictator was the only effective way of keeping a lid on the simmering hatred and division between all the various factions there. Because even at his worst... and brutal though that was... it was clearly preferable to the appalling carnage we have now in what is really a civil war.

Has the life of the ordinary Iraqi improved for the toppling of the evil Saddam? No. Does the ordinary person feel more secure? No. It was awful to hear the desperate plea from one man after yet another terrible bombing, killing men, women and children: "When will this end? When will we have peace?" The dreadful truth is that you can't see it ever ending and you can't ever see a peaceful Iraq from the present turmoil.

Iraq should never have been touched, even though Saddam was a terrible, brutal dictator... just like Mugabe is in Africa, yet he has never been touched by the West. Of course oil made the difference.

What to do now though? Pull out the allied troops and leave Iraq to sort itself out? It's just about the worst way forward in my view. I think we would then see killing fields like never before in an orgy of hatred and death during the increasing sectarian violence that would follow immediately.

The only realistic route from this mess is to let the new government try to forge a way forward, propped up by the allied troops but I'm afraid all I can see ahead is another Vietnam and Northern Ireland (magnified many thousands of times) all rolled up into one. There's no peace and no stability anywhere on the horizon although I do believe that this is what the allies want more than anything else in Iraq as the body count rises every day.

But the heartbreaking lesson that has been written in Iraq's blood is that sometimes it really is a case of better the devil (Saddam) you know....

I couldn't have said it better myself

Interesting post GB. I have a couple of thoughts to add.

Saddam was a brutal dictator, and he deserves what happened to him. Foreign occupation, however, will not work as it was historically proven not to be helpful.

I don't have a complete prescription right now. But part of the solution is democracy. We need democracy for the middle east to become stabe and prosperous in the long term. Towards this end, we need the "superpowers" to stop supporting the dictators, and let them face their people on their own. Saddam was backed and supported (militarily) by the "superpowers" for many years. The neighboring arab country you referred to in your post supported him with billions of dollars during his war with another neighboring country. This was just to the superpower's satisfaction at that time.

To have democracy, we also need the "superpowers" to be prepared to see governments with whom they may not agree, sometimes.

The really frightening thing about Iraq now that it has been completely destabilised is that there doesn't appear to be any solution that will work.

Some say "Get the foreign invaders out and leave Iraq to sort itself out"... but I think that will lead to death and destruction on an even more appalling level than now as sectarian violence spirals further out of control. But, on the other hand, the killing goes on and on as Iraq moves down the democratic route.

It truly is an awful mess and a terrible tragedy for the many, many people who just want to live peaceful lives without fear. The sad truth is that the action of the allies and the consequences that produced (which were not foreseen at the time) has made Iraq a dangerous and deadly place for its people who are in despair.
I don't like writing that but it's the truth.

Goodbai - I would just disagree with you on the point that the mess/problems were unforseen.

If anything, the many who spoke out against the war were proved more right than I expected.

If you think back to before the 2003 invasion, there many marches and speeches around the world. All the commentators agains the war said that the case for invasion because of WMD had not been made and that inspections and sanctions were working and that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to anyone.

(In fact, they worked much better than expected - there were no WMD's left!)

The same commentators said the invasion would lead to the following situations:
- oil infrastructure protected
- US companies getting contracts (eg Halliburton)
- Oil sales to be reverted to Dollars, instead of Euros
- civilians will be killed
- anarchy will ensue
- civil war/sectarian violence will break out
- terrorism will increase as a result

Frighteningly, the allies rubished these notions and Rumsfeld even went so far as to say that the Iraqis would welcome the invaders with flowers!

In my view, what the anti-war protestors warned about has come to pass. This is unfortunate.

The alternative IS better - we would have a hitherto savage dictator who would be at the mercy of the international community in terms of inspections - and one who was devoid of any weapons of mass destruction. He would not have lasted much longer and the country may have transitted from a dictatorial state to a better source of popular governance - much as has happened in many of the former Soviet republics and Balkan states.

Certainly, in my opinion, far less civilian casualties and in-fighting would have occured, and this can only be a good thing.

Cheers,
Shafique

I would hope to say that the Americans and their lacky allies have learnt their lesson but I would be in lala land....

Israel pulls the strings and pulls them well... The Americans like to danse and make their pet allies danse...

Oh well....

The rules of the Arab world really need to get their heads out of their asses and realize what their people want and the people need to do more to make their so-called "leaders" irrelevant (like in what is happening to "President" Lahoud of Lebanon)... I mean having a clown like Ghaddafi lead a country... Please!!!

true saddam was an evil man, but removing him and his government has just led to a clamouring of rival factions for power in the country, just as is happening in somalia! and if anyone is to blame for wars and violence in the middle east, it is the russians, who supplied all these countries with huge stockpiles of soviet weapons, planes, tanks etc.