This is an important, symbolic victory for the government and people of Iraq. Despite the shortcomings of the Iraqi government and the security problems that continue to plague the country, the judicial process persevered through threats, assassinations, and a bloody insurgency to convict a murderous dictator who slaughtered Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds alike. Saddam should be executed immediately to close this chapter in Iraq’s bloody history. With this verdict, the tribal blood feuds across Iraq against Saddam will be closed, the Baathist fantasy of Saddam’s return to power has been crushed, and the conspiracy theories indicating that the U.S. was going to return Saddam to power have been silenced.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the current presence of American troops in Iraq, the American public should remember that the removal of Saddam and his brutal regime was the right thing to do. After 9/11, Saddam was the only world leader that openly praised al Qaeda’s mass murder of American citizens. He threatened his neighbors, constantly attacked U.S. forces enforcing the U.N.-sanctioned no-fly zone, violated the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire, and despite reporting to the contrary, clandestinely pursued weapons of mass destruction programs.

Today, Iraq has a far bigger problem than Saddam Hussein. Saddam's bloodthirsty successors — al Qaeda, Muqtada al-Sadr’s death squads and recalcitrant Sunni insurgents - are trying to tear the country apart by turning the Iraqi people against one another. To abandon the country now would sentence the Iraqi people to a real civil war. Today’s fighting would be child's play by comparison.