Sunday, November 05, 2006

The verdict is in

Saddam has been sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal.


Not surprisingly, Shi'ites are celebrating the sentence, but Sunni Iraqis are protesting and violence has already started ramping up in Baghdad.

Of all the mixed reaction around the world, this statement by a Muslim cleric in Thailand was most telling: "The Saddam case is not a Muslim problem but the problem of America and its domestic politics," he said. "The Americans are about to vote in a midterm election, so maybe Bush will use this case to tell the voters that Saddam is dead and that the Americans are safe. But actually the American people will be in more danger with the death of Saddam."

But any decision between politics and security has always been a no-brainer for the Bush administration, hasn't it?