Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

In a previous article, I made what I felt to be a compelling case why we should have at least tried to exploit Saddam Hussein’s influence among Iraq’s Sunni population, instead of handing him over to the hangman to be executed for his crimes.

The Bush Administration articulated from the beginning of the whole execution handover process that the execution of Saddam was a decision made by a sovereign Iraqi government in a clear and transparent process, free of American influence or interference. Bush’s speech might play well to his Republican base and Rush Limbaugh’s Ditto Heads, but not so well to those we are trying to convince of our intent; those who are continuing to attack our soldiers; those who will forthwith escalate their attacks on Americans; those who already viewed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki as a stooge of the US and his government a tool of our foreign policy.

It seems clear that al Maliki rushed Hussein’s execution. The Iraqi Constitution allowed thirty days from the date the appeals court rejected Saddam’s appeal. Saddam was given less than a handful to ensure it was over before a holiday, despite apparent law and custom against this practice. The execution appeared to have taken place in a darkened stairwell on the upper floor of a building. The building was reportedly used by Saddam for the same purposes. Everyone present, except one man whose face was blurred, wore black hoods. Media reports confirmed that in the process of hanging Saddam, he was taunted. He was hung to chants of “Muqtada”, a reference to Shiite murderer and rabble-rouser Muqtada al Sadr. A grainy, cell phone video then surfaced on the Internet, showing Saddam’s final moments.

Collectively, all of these things will feed the perception among Sunnis that Saddam’s execution was a hastily crafted lynching; conducted by Shiite death squads in the pre-dawn darkness. I’m not saying that’s what it was, but we certainly shouldn’t be contributing to that perception in any way.

I don’t care if you are a liberal, a conservative, a terrorist, a pacifist or an atheist. You cannot violate the spirit of the law, while executing someone pursuant to the letter of it, and claim the moral high ground in a battle of good over evil.

Thus is the crux of my continued argument that the Bush Administration lacks the intellectual, moral and intestinal fortitude necessary to win in Iraq and more broadly against global terror.

I’m not suggesting that we hold the opinions of terrorists in high regard; to the contrary; for the last seven months, I have been stressing the need for us to escalate our use of force against terrorism, but here’s the dilemma when exercising military power:

If your goal is conquest, then kill your enemies and get it over with so our soldiers can come home and not get embroiled in a protracted bloodbath between feuding cousins. If your goal is not conquest, then you must win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people you’ve invaded in order to accomplish your objectives. That means all of them, not just the majority. At some point in the battle for hearts and minds, you have to be cognizant of the perceptions you are feeding if you are to be victorious in that battle.

This issue is not as simple as many would like it to be. Just because you take offense with the manner in which this execution was carried out does not mean you are “either with us or with the terrorists”. Nobody would have dreamed on September 12th, 2001 that conservatives would be criticizing our –arguably– conservative President for his myopia both in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush Administration went out of its way to wash its hands of Saddam’s death. For nearly four years, America has collectively wished that the Iraqis could stand up so we could stand down. Well, the Iraqis stood up and took charge of their judicial process. In that regard, as I said before, be careful what you wish for. Those who would argue that Saddam tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands and therefore is deserving of whatever he got are oversimplifying the problem. Of course he did, but the issue is not Saddam nor the way he died.

The issue is twofold: 1). that we deposed one dictatorship and we’re well on our way to creating yet another, and 2). that our hypocrisy has just made our mission objectives that much more difficult to attain. Shiite death squads have now supplanted the al Qaeda/Sunni partnership as the biggest threat to stability. Add to this not just the execution of Saddam, but the lack of dignity of the whole process and the Sunni minority seems to be in no mood for reconciliation.

Despite all of that, now that Saddam is gone, it is absolutely imperative that we win in Iraq. If we do not prevail Shiite tribal militias will. If we hastily retreat, that will bring not just civil war, but tribe-on-tribe violence and eventually a power vacuum. Dictators fill power vacuums. Withdrawal without a secure Iraq is no longer a viable option.