With former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein captured late on Saturday night, it is time for the United States to
help build democracy in Iraq.
All of the obstacles appear to have been removed.
However, the future of the Middle East country remains uncertain.
The images of Saddam's tired face framed in a tangle of unkempt hair and
beard, and of Iraqis dancing in the streets came amid an increasingly dismal
backdrop for the US-led occupation, which has strayed far from the Bush
administration's expectations of a quick, easy transition to Iraqi
self-government.
It gives the US occupation authority an opportunity to send a clear message
that the 66-year-old longtime former Iraqi leader will never regain power.
In this sense, the capture of Saddam provides a badly-needed boon for US
President George W. Bush, after seven months of increasingly bloody attacks on
US forces and their allies following Saddam's ousting in April.
For now the capture is likely to yield continuing headlines that appeared to
give a big boost to Bush's re-election campaign.
Bush could boast the prize as a major victory to dispel scepticism of his
Iraqi strategy and silence criticism on his foreign policy, especially from the
Democrats.
The capture of Saddam would also strengthen Bush's hands in leading with
other countries, especially those who have adamantly opposed the US-led war
against Iraq.
Yet, what the arrest surely will do now is to relieve Iraqis of the lingering
fear that somehow Saddam might return to power.
Whether the capture would reduce or bring an end to the deadly organized
attacks on US troops and allies in Iraq over the short term is still something
far from certain.
What matters the most to the post-invasion stage is the US-led occupation,
but not the fate of Saddam, which was merely a symbolic achievement.
According to Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) member Samir Sumaidaie, catching
or killing Saddam will not make much difference in cracking down on the
ever-escalating resistance attacks.
At the press conference on Sunday, US commander of ground forces in Iraq
Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez said his forces "do not expect a complete
elimination'' of the resistance violence.
Moreover, experts said opposition to the US-led military occupation of Iraq
was made up of far more than the supporters of Saddam Hussein, noting that
Iraqis historically distrusted occupation.
A classified Central Intelligence Agency report admitted last month that
Iraqis are increasingly losing confidence in the US occupation authority and its
hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council and willing to offer more support to the
resistance.
A car bomb killed at least 17 and injured 33 in a town west of Baghdad Sunday
morning. It was reported that no US soldiers were in the area at the time of the
blast.
Saddam's Baathist loyalists are only part of the security challenge facing
the allied troops because the insurgency also involves foreign infiltrators and
even terrorists.
The attacks by both the Baathists and foreign infiltrators may well linger on
despite Saddam's capture, because, as US media quoted those captured by the US
forces as saying, they are fighting not for Saddam, but for ending US
occupation.
The capture of Saddam Hussein has reinforced the ambiguity that many people
in the Arab world feel about the US-led war and occupation of Iraq.
While the Arab public harbours no particular love for the deposed former
leader, it despairs that an outside power can humiliate the Arab world by
capturing such a significant figure with relative impunity.
Saddam's final downfall is hardly the end of the story and may ultimately
have little real impact.
The challenges of reconstructing Iraq remain: creating jobs, restoring
electricity, repairing the oil industry, and, most importantly, settling the
rivalries and disputes between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, -- in short, building
a new political order.
Removing the final traces of Saddam -- and the lingering fear that his old
order might return -- was the prerequisite to dealing with all these basic
problems, but it in no way ensures a solution.
While Saddam's capture will help the United States and the administration in
a number of fronts in short term, its long-term ramifications on Iraq and on US
domestic politics and foreign policy should be examined in perspective.
Still, the Bush administration owes an explanation to the world community why
it went to war with Iraq in the first place when no weapons of mass destruction
have been found nearly nine months later.
The capture of Saddam, could also pose a legal challenge for the United
States which has to decide how to put the former Iraqi leader on trial and
convince the world that the process is impartial.
The capture is a watershed that should prompt Washington to speed turnover of
power to the Iraqi people and end the violence-plagued occupation of that
country.
From the very beginning of its unauthorized war against Iraq, the United
States insisted it was sending an army of "liberation'' and not an occupying
force.
The best way to demonstrate its sincerity would be to hand the administration
of Iraq to the Iraqis and to begin to remove US forces.
