Tom Friedman in today's New York Times:

Saddam deserved to die 100 deaths. But imagine if Iraq's Shiite leaders had surprised everyone, declared that there had been enough killing in Iraq and commuted Saddam's sentence to life in prison -- sparing his life in hopes of uniting the country rather than executing him and dividing it further. I don't know if it would have helped, but I do know Iraqis have rarely surprised us with gestures of reconciliation -- only with new ways to kill each other.

Now President Bush wants a "surge" of more U.S. troops to Baghdad, in one last attempt to bring order. Whenever I hear this surge idea, I think of a couple who recently got married but the marriage was never very solid. Then one day they say to each other, "Hey, let's have a baby, that will bring us together." It never works.

If the underlying union is not there, adding a baby won't help. And if the underlying willingness to share power and resources is not present among the major communities in Iraq, adding more U.S. troops won't help either. Adding more troops makes sense only if it's to buy more time for positive trends that have already begun to appear on the horizon. I don't see them.

As Saddam's hanging underscored, Iraqis are doing things their way. So maybe it's time to get out of their way.