Global Voices Online

Several Iranian bloggers talked about Saddam Hussein's death and remembered the Iran-Iraq war.

Alpar says this year can be considered one of the worst for dictators, adding that Monday's newspapers could carry the following headline: “Four less dictators for 2007″. Alpar writes that Iranian people will celebrate this event, even though the Iranian government will forget it soon, and reminds readers about the victims of the Iran-Iraq war, the war refugees and so on [Fa]. He also asks the following questions: Will Saddam’s death be a lesson for our dictators? What do people in Iraq think about today's events? Did Saddam himself think that one day he would die in these humilating conditions?

Haji Washington titles his post “Death of a Monster”. The blogger observes that on USA TV channels, we're shown Saddam with Arab leaders, but never with Donald Rumsfeld, former US Defense Secretary, when he visited Iraq during Iran-Iraq war [Fa].

Shabnameh says Saddam always wanted to become a hero and that in his imagination he died as one, though in fact he just joined the dark pages of history, adding that killing a dictator is not the solution: dictators die, but dictatorship goes on. Shabnameh expresses the hope that maybe today, some of those who were oppressed by Saddam will be happy [Fa].

Mattati says that “a person who symbolised Satan died, a person who had killed several members of our dear friends or family members”. Will dictators learn a lesson? [Fa], asks Mattati.

Rozmaregiha says Saddam is gone and dead, and that we should hope to bury what remains of his way of thinking, after 30 years of dictatorship. “Now it is the turn of the Iraqi people to write white pages of their history,” says Rozmaregiha [Fa].