Skipper

As a Guardian reading liberal sortof person my instinct in the case of Saddam's sentence is to quote Dostoyevsky's comment that the best index of civilisation in a country is how it treats its criminals and to agree with Geoffrey Roberston QC on Today this morning that 'you can't end a bloodbath with a bloodbath'. I'm also aware that principles should be applied universally and that, as an opponent of the death penalty I should, along with the Guardian, oppose it as morally retrograde.

However when principles collide one side has to give way, especially when pragmatism weighs in as well. I think that in the final analysis we should allow Saddam to be hanged. Why do I, after essaying this moral minefield, (very) reluctantly line up with The Sun and the Daily Telegraph?

1. We have to recognise that the death penalty is accepted as justice in Iraq and that to allow them to mete out their own justice we have to allow them to impose the penalties they think best. Otherwise the notion that they have their own sovereign government is rendered absurd. The Iraqis who suffered under Saddam will not be satisfied with anything less than his death as 'justice'.

2. As long as Saddam remains alive there will be a hope among his supporters that he will one day arise to lead them once again. My friend who was once an officer in the British army always maintained he should have been deliberately shot as soon as he was discovered for this very reason.

3. Iraq has to draw a line under the Saddam era and try to establish a new future. The best way to do that is for its author to be taken out of the situation completely.

Iraq has been a tragedy for at least the past two decades. It is not conceivable, given present circumstances, that it can emerge from its purgatory without at least this additional deadly consequence. Politics is often about taking the path of the least evil. In these conditions, I fear, executing Saddam is the least bad thing to do.