As Muslims worldwide are preparing to welcome the joyful religious holiday of Eid al-Adha starting from Saturday, the ousted and jailed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hastily executed by hanging at dawn in Iraq.

The former Iraqi strongman who had been in power for decades and wielded considerable influence in the Middle East for many years has finally perished for good.

History will be the best judge of the rights and wrongs of the former Iraqi leader, but the fact that the Iraqi government and the US authorities in Iraq chose to execute Saddam in such a hasty way is something worth thinking about.

It is widely believed in the international community that Saddam's execution will not solve the problems and clear the troubles currently haunting Iraq.

It is true that Saddam Hussein should be held accountable for political, economic and social problems in Iraq during decades of his reign.

The major cause of Iraq's current chaos and conflicts is not the person who was in prison, but the Unite States which launched the Iraq War in 2003 and has since maintained its military occupation.

As far as the foreign occupation is still there, anti-occupation insurgencies will not stop, and the conflicts and chaos will not end in Iraq.

One of the major reasons for the US to take the trouble to launch the Iraq War was to establish a pro-US government in Baghdad in order to replace the anti-US Saddam regime, so it can promote the American-style democracy and values in the country.

What the US government didn't expect was that it was exactly its military interference that has intensified the already-existing conflicts among Iraqi sects.

Moreover, unfair power redistribution in the wake of the fall of the Saddam regime has weakened the authority of the Iraqi central government, while some sectarian paramilitary forces have been bogged down in frequent and violent bloodshed. In face of this situation, the jailed Saddam Hussein didn't have much influence.

Ever since Saddam's rule, Iraq has been in the whirlpool of the Middle East crisis. The current disorder in Iraq offered a wide leak for foreign forces, especially some extremist and aggressive forces, to get involved in Iraq's domestic affairs, further exacerbating the turbulence in the country. For this, the occupiers should be held responsible.

To sum up, it's evident that an end to Iraq's conflicts and insurgencies is unlikely to be achieved by simply trying to get rid of Saddam Hussein physically. What's worse, executing the former Iraqi leader may even worsen the already bad situation in the country.

(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2006)