The reign of the Umayyad dynasty over the Near and Middle East, as well as the rule of the Abbasid dynasty, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the Iraqi branch of the Hashemi monarchy, and finally the Baath regime over Iraq were all marked by massacres of civilians.

Another point these governments had in common was their suppression of the Shias.

However, the Baathists, who assumed power in Iraq after a bloody military coup in 1968, have caused more bloodshed in the country than the other governments.

During his 25-year dictatorship, ousted Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein imposed an eight-year war on Iran from 1980 to 1988, slaughtered 180,000 Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s in the Anfal campaign, with major massacres in Halabja and Suleimanieh, invaded Kuwait in 1990, and savagely repressed an uprising in southern Iraq which led to the massacre of 150,000 Iraqi Shias.

After the collapse of the Baath regime in April 2003, the Iraqi nation expected international organizations to immediately try and punish Saddam and his allies.

Yet, in order to use Saddam’s trial process for propaganda purposes, the U.S. administration prolonged the trials for over one year.

During his trials, Saddam was held accountable for only two of his atrocities: the massacre of Shias in Dujail and the bloodbath of Iraqi Kurds in the Anfal campaign.

Saddam’s trials, which were controlled by the U.S. behind the scenes, did not investigate crimes committed by the Baathist forces during Iraq’s wars against Iran and Kuwait.

Of course, the main reason was to prevent the disclosure of secrets about the cooperation of the United States and some other Western countries with the Iraqi Baathist regime during the war against Iran.

According to some documents, the United States and some European countries facilitated Saddam Hussein’s programs for the production of weapons of mass destruction, which were used against the Iranian people.

Clearly, if Saddam had revealed these secrets in court, the world would have become better acquainted with the real intentions of the United States and Europe.

Unfortunately, none of these cases were ever investigated in the trial sessions and Saddam has now been sentenced to death.

If he is hanged, many secrets will be buried with him. Saddam Hussein and two of his main allies have been found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death, but will they be hanged?

Several political analysts believe that the verdict was issued to boost the flagging fortunes of U.S. President George W. Bush and the Republicans since they are in dire need of an electoral jump-start to gain more votes in the midterm Congressional election of November 7.

And the death sentence issued for Saddam is probably the best boost for the Republican campaign.

Some political observers believe the Iraqi Supreme Court will overturn the verdict of the Iraqi criminal court some time after the U.S. Congressional elections, probably in late November.

If this prediction comes true, the Republicans will have no political future in the U.S. because they will have proven that they deliberately deceived the world to stay in power. Members of today’s GOP should heed the words of wisdom of the country’s most respected Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who once said: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”