A last cigar

The big,black-rimmed glasses. The salt-and-pepper moustache. The cigar. For all the years that Saddam Husseins regime dominated the worlds international news cycles,Tariq Azizs instantly recognisable Groucho-esque features represented the civilised,articulate,diplomatic face of one of the worlds most repressive states. For those years,he was everywhere: shaking hands with James Baker,Francois Mitterand,Vladimir Putin and Pope John Paul. It is always difficult to imagine someone so firmly inside the charmed circle of diplomatic handshakes to be vulnerable to legal sanction for the acts his regime performed; and yet Iraqs former deputy prime minister was sentenced on Tuesday to death by hanging.

Aziz was not one of the worlds saints you could hardly be,in Saddams bloodstained court but the nature of his sentencing is a reminder that Iraq has not yet broken out of the murderous tit-for-tat that has marked its modern history. Aziz has been sentenced to death for the persecution of Iraqs religious,Shia parties which are,through an uncanny coincidence,at the head of the coalition that governs Iraq today.

Tariq Aziz,after all,was the man in Saddams inner council whose very existence was a reminder that the Baathists were firmly secular. Aziz was a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church,one of the churches in the Middle East with an Orthodox,Byzantine heritage that nonetheless acknowledge the authority of the Roman Catholic pope. They havent done well recently; their archbishop in Mosul was kidnapped and killed just over a year ago,and Iraqi Christians make up a disproportionate number of refugees leaving the country. Azizs story has riveted the world but its effect on Iraqs history probably isnt done.