If you’re looking for a blogger to feel some pity for Saddam Hussein because his executioners were primitive and rude, you’ve come to the wrong place. Punch up the Daily Kos and you’ll find countless diarists eager to express some sympathy for this particular devil. But if you’re in the market for crazy, you’ve come to the wrong blog.

But also, if you think the facts that Saddam’s executioners taunted him, behaved in an uncivilized manner and chanted the name “Moqtada” aren’t matters of concern for us, you’re deluding yourself. As the Allahpundit put it both eloquently and bluntly, “Why does this matter? Because it’s typical of these morons that even at a moment of supreme justice, they’d find some way to infect it with savagery.”

THE HOPE WHEN WE INVADED was that we’d be greeted with garlands of roses. To some extent, metaphorically speaking anyway, this worked out. The vast majority of Iraqis were in fact happy that we toppled Saddam. Other than Baathist dead-enders and several million suddenly skittish Sunnis, the country rejoiced.

The reason that those Sunnis were skittish, though, should have given us some pause. The problem with the “garlands of roses” metaphor was that it implied that once Saddam was gone, the Iraqi body politic would be a proverbial piece of clay for America’s State Department wizards to shape and mold. Oh sure, the nascent Iraqi democracy would probably have screwy things like Kafiyehs and a constitutional clause dedicated to annihilating Israel, but the administration’s plans banked on the hope that the Iraqi people, above all else, would want to live in peace.

And that’s where the program parted with reality. The Islamic world hasn’t really excelled at living in peace over the past several decades. More specifically, Shiites and Sunnis have never been great in the peaceful coexistence department. Given the bad feelings that Iraq’s Shiites had after a few decades of abuse at the hands of Saddam’s Sunni henchmen, Iraq was a particularly problematic spot from which to launch what would have to be a historically harmonious Shiite/Sunni joint venture.

Angry Shiites can be a handful. One glance at Iran tells you all you need to know in that regard. For its part, Iraq’s Sunni population is no day at the beach and has more than its share of rabid elements. Bolstered by Al Qaeda fighters, the Sunni dead-enders soon became more problematic than ever.

WAS THIS ALL FORESEEABLE? Perhaps. I’d even say probably. It should have been obvious given even a cursory glance at Iraq and its neighbors that there would be a great number of people who, after Saddam fell, would have little interest in living in a peaceful, tolerant society.

None of this is to say that both the Sunni and Shiite communities aren’t full of good and wonderful people. But any serious appraisal of the situation has to take into account certain indisputable facts from the region: If Egypt had free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood would win. If Saudi Arabia had free elections, a Wahabist sect sympathetic to Osama bin Laden would win. A similar statement can be made of every country in the Middle East. (Except Israel, of course, where free elections are in fact held and Radical Islamic parties usually do quite poorly.)

SO WHY SHOULD IRAQ BE DIFFERENT? Perhaps a more pressing concern today is whether in fact Iraq is different. Things like the Saddam execution suggest the answer to the latter question is no. There is a deep undercurrent of savagery in the Iraqi culture that will not just inhibit the growth of a peaceful democracy there, but probably prohibit it.

The only answer, as it always has been, is to stamp out that savagery ferociously and totally.  At the end of this war, Iraq must necessarily be composed of people who always wanted to live in peace and the one-time enemies of peace who have come to realize they have no other choice but to live in peace. How much killing will this take? That will depend on how many enemies of peace there are and how determined they are to live in a state of war.  One thing's for certain - the more resolute we are, the less killing there will be.

Some might argue that we can’t get this done. But let us remember, the remnants of Imperial Japan came to embrace peaceful democracy. Eventually.

The best news of the past few days actually wasn’t Saddam’s execution, even though Saddam facing justice (in spite of the primitive savagery of the execution itself) is something that every American can feel proud of. The even better news than Saddam’s death is that (according to the reliable Strategy Page), American and Iraqi forces have begun to make war on the Sadr militia:

Without much fanfare, much less a press release, the government and Coalition troops have gone to war with Moqtada al Sadrs Mahhi Army militia. Leaders are being arrested or killed. The raids are being carried out with overwhelming speed and force, so that pro-Sadr gunmen have little chance to put up effective resistance.

Are we at last getting serious about this thing? Let us pray.

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