Saddam deserved his fate. He was an evil man. Never mind if Iraq prospered under his regime. Even Germany had briefly prospered under Hitler. That does not justify the methods used by such leaders. Brief prosperity is not unusual in a situation like this. Hark back to 1975 in India when Indira imposed the emergency. One of the "gains of the emergency" was "The trains ran on time". Trains can be made to run on time even without an emergency.
May be the so called "clash of civilizations" is real. The Christians are being clever. In their fight with Islam, they are exploiting the Shia-Sunni differences. They first sided with Iraq against Iran in the eighties. Now the are exploiting Iraq's ethnic divide and have cut Iraq into two (or three if the Kurds are taken into account). The Shia -Sunni divide will weaken Islam in their fight against Christianity.
Where will it end finally? I don't know. Nostradamus had predicted "The yellow race will rule the world" May be the Christians and Muslims will destroy or greatly weaken each other. A grinning Chinese race(Yellow race?) watching from the sidelines will then take over from both. G Vishwanath
