The government’s decision to express concern at the death sentence handed to the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might please the domestic pressure groups, including the Communist parties, but would do little to ease India’s deepening diplomatic contradictions in the Gulf.

While the ultimate punishment to Saddam Hussein has been certainly criticised for many reasons, and not just in the Muslim world, the two governments in Iran and Iraq are celebrating it.

Irrespective of its intent, the Indian reaction, issued in the name of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is bound to irritate Washington, Baghdad and Tehran in one stroke. That surely takes some doing.

Mukherjee’s statement acknowledged that Saddam Hussein can appeal against the verdict. It expressed the concern that “such life and death decisions require credible due process of law, which does not appear to be victor’s justice and is acceptable to the people of Iraq as well as the international community.”

Mukherjee also expressed the hope that the “verdict will not add to the suffering of the people of Iraq”. India’s hopes are unlikely to make much of a difference to the Iraqi realities.

For the verdict is bound to deepen the current violence between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority in Iraq.

It would have been logical to expect that the Congress leadership that burnt its hands on Iraq before would have thought through the implications before sounding sympathetic to Saddam Hussein.

The Congress party, which barely a year ago had to sacrifice its loyal External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh for his dalliance with Saddam Hussein, appears to have learnt little. For the Congress, the Middle East remains a curse it cannot seem to shake off.

... contd.