THE US has formally declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq. In history, the US combat engagement in Iraq would always remain disputed for its moral correctness: some would say the world was left with no other option to remove Saddam Hussein and dismantle his autocratic system in order to create ground for a parliamentary democracy to thrive in the country;

also to establish a rule of secularism in which people of all faiths and people of different sects within the Islamic faith would enjoy freedom to practice their faith. The other view is that Saddam’s destruction was nobody’s problem, except the people of Iraq. If a dictator arises in a country and throttles freedoms of people, it is the duty of the people of that country to organise themselves strongly enough so they defeat the autocrat’s troopers and hooligans and, if they choose, to ultimately hang him at the national capital’s main public square, not of any foreigners. The debate will forever continue whether the US violated the sovereignty of Iraq in invading and occupying it to demolish a dictator or whether the US created democracy in Iraq by doing so.