Chemical Ali

The conviction in Baghdad yesterday of "Chemical Ali," the cousin of Saddam Hussein who Iraqi prosecutors said was responsible for the death of 180,000 Kurds in the late 1980s, is one of those events that in a more just world would give pause to all the American politicians who now confidently pronounce the Iraq war a mistake. Particularly to those such as Senator Obama, who oppose the Iraq War with a tone of moral superiority. To Mr. Obama, we would say, meet the head of the Halabja Chemical Attack Victims' Society, Lukman Abdul-Qader. The Associated Press reported yesterday that at Halabja, where an estimated 5,000 died in a chemical weapons attack in 1988, Mr. Abdul-Qader was among those gathered yesterday in a small rally at the cemetery to mark the guilty verdict. "We thank God that we have lived to see our enemies being punished for all of the atrocities they have committed against our people," Mr. Abdul- Qader said there.

Is there any doubt that, without the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali would be today enjoying a penalty-free existence, perhaps enjoying the jet skis deployed for the use of guests enjoying the hospitality at Saddam's riverfront summer palaces? Is this the world that the Democratic foreign policy intellectuals want to live in, one in which a dictator's henchman can kill 180,000 Kurds and escape, essentially, penalty-free? The calculation can be made that it wasn't worth the life of 3,500 American soldiers killed in Iraq to bring someone to justice for killing 180,000 Kurds. It was an argument that essentially held sway until the attacks of September 11, 2001, clarified that the murderous tendencies couldn't be confined to Kurdistan. The Democrats will claim that an International Criminal Court of the sort the Bush administration has been skeptical of might have convicted Chemical Ali with no American casualties. We've seen how well that approach has worked in, say, Darfur.

Mr. Abdul-Qader thanked God for living to see the conviction and death sentence of Chemical Ali. He might, too, have thanked the American soldiers and President Bush for having made it possible. Those Americans and Europeans who target President Bush as the world's troublemaker too often forget that there are real bad guys out there, people like Chemical Ali. His conviction makes the world more safe, more just, more civilized.