Saddam Hussein's execution is a sideshow to Iraq's far graver problems. A bigger concern is what will the U.S. do next, and will its actions make things better -- or, God forbid, worse -- in the country it invaded, asks BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen.
Does the US have it in its power to make things better? Can it make matters worse? The answer to the first is maybe - to the second, it is definitely.
The one point of agreement in Washington about their position in Iraq is that it is bad. Even President George W Bush now says "We're not winning, we're not losing" in Iraq.
In the New Year, he has promised to make some decisions about what the US does next in Iraq.
It looks as if he may not take the advice that was in the recent report by the foreign policy grandees led by the former Secretary of State James Baker and the former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton.
Their opening line was succinct, and more accurate than the president's description: "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating."
The Baker-Hamilton report, at first, seemed to offer the Americans a way out.
It recommended switching US forces from combat to training Iraqis - and asked for a diplomatic initiative that would engage all the countries of the region.
But the report was also a polite, but firm denunciation of the ideologically driven foreign policy of the Bush administration.
By the week before Christmas, it looked as if swallowing it would be too much for the White House. There was even talk of sending more troops to Iraq.
Bowen also noted the Saudis are concerned about the fate of Iraq's Sunni minority, and that it could move to help them if the U.S. pulled out.
The Saudis are acutely conscious of the way that Iran has been, so far, the big winner in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The US obligingly removed Saddam Hussein, Iran's biggest enemy in the region, and broke the Sunni ascendancy in Iraq.
Thanks to the US, Shia Iran has Shia Muslim allies in top jobs in the Iraqi government and military.
Iraq is now a major exporter of instability.
The US-led invasion threw a big rock into the pool of the Middle East. It has kicked up waves, not ripples, which will wash around the region long after Saddam Hussein is dead and buried.