United States President George W. Bush has hailed the guilty verdict and death sentence against Saddam Hussein as another of his turning points for Iraq and a major achievement for democracy in that country.

We wish it were true. But the hanging of Saddam Hussein is unlikely to prove to be anything of the sort. If anything, the execution of Saddam will, in all probability, fuel the sectarian violence in Iraq. Moreover, the timing of the verdict in his year-long trial will intensify cynicism about the process and the role of the United States in the whole affair.

In other words, things are likely, in the short to medium term, to get much worse in Iraq, before they start to get any better.

Few people, in or outside Iraq, doubt that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who oppressed his own people. But the United States and Tony Blair's Britain, the junior partner in the venture, will not find many people who support their policy of pre-emptive strike and regime change in Iraq. Worse, the legitimacy of that strategy against Saddam Hussein was weakened by the premise of its implementation: that he possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Moreover, so badly executed has been the Anglo-American Iraq project that it has delivered a broken country, in the throes of sectarian strife and a civil war. While what not so very long ago would have been 'that bastard Saddam' has not been quite transformed into romantic hero, he is emerging as one of the rallying symbols for the violent, urban resistance.

The trial and verdict, even at that, might have had a pacific effect in Iraq if it was widely perceived that the process was fair. But critics of the trial are not only among Saddam's lawyers or supporters of the loony left, as some of the Bush supporters might want to charge. Indeed, Amnesty International and the U.S.-based human rights group, Americas Watch, also say that the process was flawed.

Indeed, it would have been better - better for Iraq, better for the world - if Saddam Hussein had been tried by the International Criminal Court, to which, unfortunately, the United States, under the Bush administration, has refused to subscribe. The process might have been tedious and frustrating; like Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam might have been afforded greater opportunity for grandstanding; but in the end there would be less doubt about its legitimacy.

By trying Saddam in Iraq, with a Baghdad government under the tutelage of Washington, it didn't require much argument that this was a voice-of-Jacob-hand-of-Esau syndrome. So Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman may have delivered the verdict, yet there is a sense that the outcome was foregone before the trial began. In that regard, most people will see this as victor's justice; justice for the United States, justice for Iraq's Shi'ites and Kurds and justice for the opponents of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party.

In this scenario, an overthrown dictator will be hanged, but in perverse fashion his status will be elevated and President Bush will be short of 'the major achievement' for constitutional government and the rule of law in Iraq. It is still not too late for the embrace of the International Criminal Court and for it to be given a stake in Iraq.