I come from a half Iranian family so obviously my opinion is going to be very biased, but I view Sadaam quite negatively. I'll preface and say he undeniably was a thorn in the West's side by the end if his government, and had it survived, I suspect it would have become less egregious in its brutality. Life in Iraq is undeniably materially worse than it was before, and the US murdered millions more Iraqis then Sadaam ever could.

With that being said, he still acted as a bulwark of Western imperialism in the Iran-Iraq war, and set the country back decades. His use of chemical weapons was only possible due to Western support, and it's well known his ascension to power was orchestrated by the US, who made sure a more left wing Bathist didn't come to power. His righist Ba'ath faction persecuted Communists and made what was once one if the largest communist parties in the Arab world irrelevant.

I know Comrade Hakim of The Deprogram likes to bring up the point that the majority of Iraq's weapons during the Iran-Iraq war were of Soveit Irgin, as well as the fact that their will clerics in Iraq who want to do an Island revolution of their own who were connected to Iran, however I find both these points moot.

For one, Iran received nothing from any world power besides what they could smuggle in, or like 7 missiles from Ghadaffi that they had to reverse engineer. So it's not as if Iraq was propped up by the USSR and Iran by the US, the Iraqis were just using the weapons they had already obtained decades prior, or for which they could secure.

Secondly, the West demonstrated its support for Sadaam in the war through West Germany being allowed to sell chemical weapons to him, as well as the US supporting Iraq in the UN.

Finally, Sadaam may not have been installed in a complete color revolution, but his coup was largely able to succeed because of CIA intervention. The Islamic Revolution in Iran, though not a socialist one, was still a popular revolution supported by the masses. It inspired many of the masses of other regional powers, as can be seen with Lebanon. Sadaam suppressing that popular uprising in Iran and potentially his own country isn't justified due to them being Islamic rather than socialist. I'm not saying it should have succeeded in Iraq, or that I think a socialist revolution in the region wouldn't be more effective. However I'd say it's arguable that those uprising had a closer seal of legitimacy as popular mass movements then Sadaam's own coup, which further makes his invasion unjustified.

I usually don't like to poke Iraqi comrades on the war, but too often I find that the disdain put upon Iran (in some respects justified) is a little misplaced. It's not as simple a conflict as is often described, but I think it's fair to say that Iraq was acting as a tool for imperialism unnecessarily.

I respect Comrade Hakim immensely, but this is probably the one point I diverge with him more significantly on.

That's, a general overview on Sadaam, though it could be much more expensive.