From Newsweek
By Fareed Zakaria

The saga of Saddam’s end–his capture, trial and execution–is a sad metaphor for America’s occupation of Iraq. What might have gone right went so wrong. It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein was not your run-of-the-mill dictator. He created one of the most brutal, corrupt and violent regimes in modern history, something akin to Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China or Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. Whatever the strategic wisdom for the United States, deposing him began as something unquestionably good for Iraq.

But soon the Bush administration dismissed the idea of trying Saddam under international law, or in a court with any broader legitimacy. This is the administration, after all, that could see little advantage to a United Nations mandate for its own invasion and occupation. It put Saddam’s fate in the hands of the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians who had been victims of his reign. As a result, Saddam’s trial, which should have been the judgment of civilized society against a tyrant, is now seen by Iraq’s Sunnis and much of the Arab world as a farce, reflecting only the victors’ vengeance.

This was not inevitable. Most Iraqis were happy to see Saddam out of power. In the months after the American invasion, support for the Coalition Provisional Authority topped 70 percent. This was so even among Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. In the first months of the insurgency, only 14 percent of them approved of attacks on U.S. troops. (That number today is 70 percent.) The rebellious area in those early months was not (Sunni) Fallujah but (Shiite) Najaf.

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