The theme of this article seems to be "naive arabs vs clever westerners". Sunnis and Shias were hell bent on destroying each other for centuries. If they sought to buy weapons in a pre-sanctions era, I can't see how Bhadrakumar blames westerners for that. Prosperity has been achieved in many countries minus brutality. To gloss over brutality and murder by a diplomat to boot, is revolting. "Indian housemaids were repeatedly raped" he says and yet blames western governments for delivering what surely the Indian government would have wanted had they the wherewithal. No one should have any sympathy for Saddam. We all should perhaps dispute the means used by America and George Bush in particular to achieve these goals but to justify Saddam's actions to spite the US actions is utter stupidity. I can't believe we appoints such folks as our diplomats to foreign governments.
