At long last, the people of Iraq are freed from the brutality of Saddam Hussein. The swift success of the coalition’s military campaign has been followed by predictable difficulties in organizing a hew government, restoring an economy, rebuilding civic society, and quelling violence from remnants of the old regime. But these challenges are kept in scale by recalling a dictator who murdered three hundred thousand fellow citizens. Saddam chose weapons of mass destruction as the central symbol of his domestic and international swagger—using the same internal security apparatus to parry United Nations inspectors and to extinguish domestic political dissent. Removing Iraq’s Ba’athist regime has ended a looming danger to regional neighbors, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The crucial hopes for Middle East peace may also be enhanced by the change. And a new government in Baghdad lessens the chance that weapons matériel will be transferred to ill-intentioned nonstate actors.
