Karim Sadjadpour, who is the chief Iran-affairs analyst for the International Crisis Group:
When as an Iranian passport holder I felt a strange but profound sympathy for Saddam watching him being executed—the same man who instigated a war which produced 500,000 Iranian casualties, attacked Iranians with chemical weapons, and whose last words were "down with the Persians"--I can only imagine what a Sunni Arab feels...
I've always disagreed with the notion that there exists an inherent hostility between Sunnis and Shia and believe this issue has been misunderstood and exaggerated as of late—as if Sunnis come out of the womb hating Shia and vice-versa. But the vengeful and sectarian fashion in which Saddam was killed may be the tipping point for a sustained sectarian war—Sunni rage against the Shia, followed by Shia reprisals (or vice-versa)--both inside and outside Iraq. I've read several reports thus far of pro-Saddam rallies in various Arab capitals where his supporters (who have suddenly mushroomed) rail against the nefarious "Persians" (code for Shia), and vow revenge. The NYT ran a piece yesterday saying that as a reaction to Saddam's death many more Sunnis are now sympathetic to the insurgency.
In my opinion the country that benefited the least from the way in which Saddam was executed (apart from Iraq of course) is Iran. Iran's leadership aspires to be the vanguard of the entire Ilamic world, not just the Shia world, and the last thing they want is a divided umma and rising Sunni enmity towards Shia and Persians.
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full: http://justworldnews.org/archives/002316.html
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Colin Brace
Amsterdam